


The colorful death

by Iwastemytimereading



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 55,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24093172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwastemytimereading/pseuds/Iwastemytimereading
Summary: This is mostly about a girl named Juliet and a boy named Tim. A story of mixed fates. They meet while skateboarding and become friends. But everything changes when Juliet goes missing and when Tim starts looking for her, he finds himself tangled in a dangerous adventure where he can not trust anyone but himself and Juliet. A story of how sometimes, tragedy can do just a bit of good too.This story can also be found on Wattpad under the same name and username, I just decided to post it on here as well in case it's easier that way for any of you.Now finally finished.





	1. A day in the middle of May

It seemed as if it was going to be just another sunny day in the middle of May. I got dressed and went to school. While I was skateboarding to get there, my thoughts began to wander. I was thinking about my schoolmates, friends and school. I was wondering what Sarah, Maya and Harry would think about my new black backpack. I was planning to go to the skate park after school as well. Naturally, the school went on without an end, whatever would we do without 8 hours of suffering per day? 

When I finally got home, I dropped off my backpack, ate lunch, took my skateboard and skated to the park.  
When I got there I just wanted to put on my black and red helmet and start skating when suddenly a guy, dressed all in black, skated by me, but I thought nothing of it and just skated off to the first obstacles. While I was skating, I heard the whistle of the wind and I saw that guy with the corner of my eye. His intentions were clear, he was trying to beat me. When he caught up to me, I could see that his eyes were brown as well as his hair. We both reached the edge of the barrier at the same time and jumped over it. He took of his helmet; I did the same. He reached out his hand 'Not bad, for a girl', he said. He smiled and said 'Tim', I shook his hand with a still serious face ‘Juliet. I bet I can beat you at the jumpers', I said. We both put our helmets back on. 'Whoever loses buys the other ice cream', he added, and we skated off. I made the first and second jumper before him, if only for a second. Just when I jumped over the last one, I turned my skateboard weirdly and started to fall, but just in that second a hand caught me. When I stood up, I saw his smiling face. 'You won', he said 'but there were a few mistakes'. 'You owe me ice cream', I reminded him with a grin on my face. He laughed and we walked towards the closest ice cream shop where he bought me ice cream. 

When I finished it, he looked at me and said: 'You skate pretty good, you gonna come here again?’ I looked at the evening sky, it was already taking on a pretty pink colors, the sun disappearing behind the buildings near the skate park 'I don't know' I said and then I had to skate home, even though I wanted to stay more. Just as I was turning on to the road I looked over my shoulder one last time and saw Tim standing on the edge of the skate park again, his skateboard in his hand and his cap on his head, the setting sun painting an almost mirage-like look on his far-away silhouette.

When I got to school the next day, our teacher told us we would be getting a new classmate. I found that quite odd, considering it was May already and the classes were about to end soon. I wasn't exactly watchful but then I saw that unmistakable face and the smirk that came with it. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he smirked back. Only then I realized that the only free seat in the classroom was at my desk. He smiled and sat next to me. When the teacher walked away Tim started talking to me. 'Are you coming to the skate park today as well?' I was about to just shrug but then I changed my mind and accepted his invitation for the conversation.

'Probably.' I answered his question. 'How come you came to our school?' 'Well, we moved here, and my mom asked me whether I wanted to continue my education at my old school or at this one. If I decided to continue going to my old school, I'd have to take a one-hour long train ride but then again, I didn't really know anybody here. So, I came to the skate park because I always go skating when I have to think, it helps. And I met you there.' at this point he smirked at me, his brown eyes glinting. He had those kinds of eyes you just knew spelled trouble, but somehow you knew he’d help you if you needed it. I nodded my head and he continued on with his story.' When I came home, I told my mom about you and decided I wanted to go to this school. And here I am', he finished. I looked at him confused but then I just shrugged, and we started to talk. We got to know each other better during the class and I found out that he likes nature and skateboarding which I knew already. I just started to tell him stuff about me, but then the bell rang. The class went by way faster than it usually did when I was talking to Tim. I just heard his 'See you!' and he disappeared in the crowd.

As soon as I got home, I took my skateboard and helmet and skated off towards the skate park. Of course, Tim was there already, he smirked at me and we began skating. We skated together until the evening. Just when I wanted to skate home, he grabbed my hand. 'Wait,' he said 'wanna go get some ice cream? Come on Juliet, it's on me.' I gave in and gave him a slight smile with a nod. We went to the ice cream parlor and he got us both some ice cream. For him, half chocolate half vanilla, which I really didn't understand and for me half cookie half Nutella. When we finished, I thanked him for the ice cream and went home. He smiled (what no smirk this time?) and waved at me. 

When I got home, I started thinking about him. Can I trust him? Is he my friend? Do I want him to be something more? I didn't know an answer to any of those questions, so I just decided to have a shower and watch TV for a bit and then go to sleep, because my parents weren't home yet; they went to have dinner at a restaurant with some of their co-workers. My mind was trying to warp ideas into my mind, ideas for songs, ideas for dreams, ideas talks. I knew my mind wouldn’t let me fall asleep for some time, trying to force flashbacks and bad things into my nightmares, not letting me close my eyes. It was like this a lot, my mind. Not letting me sleep, twisting ideas and words until all I had in my mind was confusion and fakes images and pieces of time that never happened. I tried to fix the way I always did. With loud music in my ears, thinking of nothingness that sometimes only came with the morning light.

The questions were still bumping into one another in my head, but I ignored them, thinking of nothing and focusing on the lyrics of the songs blasting through the speakers of the radio. I didn’t want to turn and toss all night, so I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. Hoped that the night would bring some rest and the morning would bring answers, energy and the dew-soaked grass.


	2. The broken party lights

When I woke up, my mind was clear, at least for a moment, after that, the first thought that crossed my mind was Tim. I know it sounds cheesy, but I still couldn't help but think if I was going to see him at school today. I almost hit myself, because of course I was going to see him at school, why wouldn’t I? I quickly got dressed and skateboarded to school. Once I got there, I heard Maya and Sarah talking to our school mates about the trip that we would be taking this weekend. We planned to go to the nearby river and then spend the afternoon there. I liked the plan, mostly because I really loved swimming. Tim and I talked almost throughout all of our classes and he was excited for the trip as well. Everybody had their own responsibilities for our trip. I had to bring salty snack, Tim had to bring the drinks, Harry had to decorate the area a little bit and so on and forth.

The weekend came sooner than I thought, and I already had my swimsuit on, my towel in my backpack and two big bags of crisps, popcorn and other snacks. Tim and I decided to skateboard to the river and when the time came, we did just that. We talked about the fact that my birthday would be tomorrow and what was I going to do for celebration. I told him that I was planning on throwing a party the next Saturday. When we got to river Maya, Sarah and Harry were already there. Maya and Sarah were setting up a barbecue and Harry was hanging the lights up on the trees because we were planning on staying there after dark too. Tim and I put the drinks and the snacks in the shade, and I went to help Sarah with the chairs. When I came back a few of my school mates were coming to the river but they were all talking to Tim. I didn't even bother going close to them because they always either made fun of me or ignored me. But I got used to it. They left me alone as long as I did and considering I didn’t really need their help with anything and they didn’t need mine, it was alright. The only ones I got along in the class with were Maya, Sarah, Harry and now Tim. Instead of thinking about that, I decided to just go swimming a little bit and clear my head, even if for just a moment. As soon as I got in however all of my schoolmates got in the water as well. I knew exactly what was going to happen: they would try to dunk me. Did I say they left me alone as long as I didn’t bother them? Except when they were in a mood, then they didn’t. We had a few fights over the years, I punched one of them once and then he punched back and then our parents had to get called to school and honestly? It was a bunch of drama over nothing if you ask me. So from then on, we mostly ignored one another.

I tried swimming away from them but as I didn't exactly look where I was going, I hit a rock with my head and started going under the surface. I felt myself starting to lose oxygen but then somebody grabbed my hand and pulled me out. As I got back above the water surface, I started looking around myself to see who had just pulled me out. But strangely enough, nobody was really that close to me that could save me. The only person that was even remotely close to me was Tim and even he was 10 meters away and he was talking and laughing with my other school mates, Harry was still on the shore with Maya and Sara.

I decided to swim back to the shore and pour myself a glass of cola and talk with Harry for a bit, just to pass the time. And we hadn’t talked a lot since I arrived anyways, so I decided it wouldn’t be so bad.  
While I was talking to him, I realized that besides Harry and Tim no guy in my class ever talked to me. But I filled that thought away for another day, when I would have more time for overthinking and ate a little bit of veggies, popcorn and a scoop of ice cream, and then decided to go home. Even though I really didn't want to go yet, I realized that the longer I stayed there, the sadder I would get because it seemed like Tim acted as if though he didn't even know me when he was with other people, especially if those people were our school mates. I said goodbye to Maya, Sarah and Harry, took my skateboard and went home. Even though I knew it was a mistake I looked at Tim and he looked right back at me. As soon as I got home, I decided to go outside to go to the skate park and do something that nobody other than Harry knew that I liked to do; write songs. 

I changed into my black baggy pants, grey t-shirt and a black jumper, took my skateboard and went outside with my notebook and a pencil.   
As soon as I got out of our apartment building, however, I felt something hit me over the head, I could hear my skateboard hit the ground and everything around me suddenly became dark. 

And then there was only silence.


	3. Point of view

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little side note, this is gonna be skipping a lot between Tim's and Juliet's point of view.

When I woke up, I had no idea where I was or what has happened to me. Suddenly, there was a man in front of me, dressed in fluorescent clothing. He was wearing bright pink tights, a green shirt and a purple cape. He also had a blue mask and a cap, so I wasn't able to see his face and he was carrying a rubber baseball bat. He came to a stop in front of me and only then did I notice, that my hands and legs were tied to wall. He then introduced himself as Eztli and raised his baseball bat. Even though I knew that what was going to happen would be impossible to escape, I still struggeled against the bonds, but to no avail. Eztli then started swinging his baseball bat and hit me straight in the stomach. And even though the bat was rubber, my ribs and stomach still hurt as if though they were on fire. After he hit me for about ten times or more, he left and locked the door behind him. I couldn't even sit straight anymore and I collapsed on the cold stone floor in pain and exhaustion.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While that was happening Tim skated to Juliet's house, to apoligise to her for his behavior the day before. He ringed the doorbell and the door opened to show Juliet's mother, panicky, worried and in tears. She told him that Juliet still didn't come home and that she even called the police, but they unable to find her as well. Tim didn't know what to do, so he ran to the skate park, because that was the first place he could think of and was sure that if anywhere, Juliet would be there. The park however was almost completely empty, and there was no sign of Juliet either. He went back to her house, with worry clouding his brain. When he came to the backside of her house, he noticed Juliet's skateboard lying in the grass. He knew that Juliet would never just leave her skateboard outside, especially not in the grass which would get wet with the morning dew. He picked the skateboard up and went back home, determined to find her.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I woke up again, Eztli was in front of me with his baseball bat again. He now visited me three times a day and every time he beat me with his bat and then left me in pain on the floor. I was starving, considering the only meal he ever brought me consisted of a piece of dry corn bread and a cold cup of tea, but I was alive, even though at times I felt like it would be better if I just died and escaped the pain once and for all. I was thinking was happening to my parents, schoolmates, friends...

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tim was still seated at his desk in front of his computer and was doing researches on local kidnappers. He found out that the most recent and also known kidnapper was a man called Eztli. He was a man dressed in colourful clothes, who kidnapped girls dressed in black. The police wasn't able to catch him yet because he never left any traces except for the victims' clothes, backpacks, or in Juliet's case, her skateboard. Tim then started to look for Eztli's hideout. He knew that this part was going to be anything but easy, but he wasn't going to just give up on Juliet. His father used to be a cop, so Tim not only had a whole lot of knowledge on how to track people down, he also had access to all kinds of sources and documents the country had on different cases and criminals. He was going to find Eztli and kill him.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was still lying on the floor and started observing the room. Luckily there was a carpet next to me, so I was at least able to keep some of my body heat. The walls were painted a bright green and yellow which literally stung your eyes if you looked at them for too long. There was also a flickering light hanging from the ceiling. There were a couple of paintings on the walls, if you could call them that. They were basically just quotes about the meaning of life, hung on the walls and framed. I read them for about a hundred times and I still didn't understand them. Every day, every time that Eztli came down to visit me, I asked him why he had kidnapped me. As expected I never got an answer.

But today something was different. First of all when Eztli came down, he wasn't wearing his mask. For the first time I saw his face too. And it was the complete opposite of what I had expected. I don't know why, but for some reason, I thought he would have loads of scars and angry features. But the reality was the complete opposite of that. Eztli had bluer than blue eyes, dark brown eyebrows, long brown eyelashes and his hair was the colour of dark brown chocolate. His lips were a cherry red and at the moment they were in a straight line. And even though his skin was slightly tanned, his face was pale and he looked really shaken up. As every day I asked him why he had kidnapped me and to my suprise, he actually answered me. 'As you already know, my name is Eztli' he said, 'I kidnap girls that are dressed in black. I don't like black, that's the symbol of sadness and mourning. No girl comes back alive from this place. And until now nobody has been able to find me. For a few days now however, there has been a brunet boy dressed in black spying around my door so I am afraid we'll have to speed things up a little bit.' I then noticed a yellow and purple gun hanging from his belt. He grinned and winked at me and then walked out of the room without even beating me up this time. 

I felt my blood run cold. A brown haired boy, dressed in black...Tim!

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tim has quite quickly figured out, that Eztli was going to be hiding in a cave or at least underground. So he started doing researches on all of the nearby caves. He found out that the only closed and unvisited cave that was remotely close to the town was actually some sort of a mine. He then went to take a look at the mine one day to find a trace of Juliet. However, no matter how many times he went there, he never found anything. 

Until one day, he caught a sight of a purple cape on the other side of the planks that were covering the entrance. He had no idea what to do but then something hit him on the head and his vision went dark.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tried to get up again and that's when I remembered that I had a pocket knife in my back pocket. I felt stupid for not remembering it sooner but then again, with everything that was going on right now, you can't really blame me for it.

I slowly pulled the knife out of my back pocket with two fingers and opened it. I knew it was sharp enough to cut through ropes. I got this knife years ago from my cousin Max and I sharpened it so it was now able to cut through almost anything. I dragged it across the ropes that were binding my arms. At first, it looked as if nothing was going to happen but then the ropes slowly but surely started ripping apart. Once my arms were free I began to work on my legs as well.

That was when I heard it. A sound of somebody walking right towards my doors, dragging something behind them. Whoever it was seemed to then change their mind and continued walking down the hall.

I released a breath I didn't even know I was holding and began cutting the ropes even faster. After what felt like forever I was finally free of my bonds and I stood up. Well I tried to at least. But considering that I had been sitting or lying on the floor for the past few days and being beaten in between , I could feel my head spinning and my legs fell asleep as well. So I needed a few minutes to really even stand straight. Then I started exploring the room looking for an exit. It was actually quite bigger than it seemed and there were a few wooden crates on the floor that I haven't noticed before either. I opened them and inside I found purple, green and yellow jackets. I quickly shrugged on a green jacket and started taking pictures off the walls as quietly as I could. Behind one of them I found an air shaft and i took the lid off of it. I slowly and carefully climbed inside, since the raft wasn't all that wide.

When I was in the shaft for what like 10 minutes, I came to some sort of a section. I could hear voices coming from the left side so I decided to take that route. The first voice was obviously Eztli's, but I wasn't so sure about who the other voice belonged to. It did sound familiar though. After about five more minutes I reached some sorts of iron bars on the right side of the shaft. I looked through them and I suddenly realized why the second voice had sounded so familiar.

I could see Tim, lying as if though he was boneless on the chair he was tied to and I could see Eztli bowing and flicking his cape behind him, as if he was doing some kind of show, before he turned around and closed the door behind him. Only when I could hear the lock click in the door, did I feel safe enough to come out of the hiding. I quickly scanned the room and noticed that it was about 3 meters tall. I then took of the bars and jumped on the floor as quietly as I could. When Tim saw me he was surprised on course, confusion and questions were written all over his face. I then took out my pocket knife and began to work on his binds but before I could even do some damage to the ropes, I heard steps coming towards the room again and this time I was sure they weren't going to pass it and walk on. 

That could only mean one thing- Eztli was coming back! I looked in panic around myself for a hiding spot, since I couldn't very well jump 3 meters into the air. I saw a dark wooden chest, which was about 2 meters deep and 1 meter wide. I opened the chest and in it I could see pieces of colourful silk. I quickly jumped in and just in time too because as soon as I closed it, Eztli walked in the room.

The minute he came in, I could see he was really angry. His blue eyes held a hint of craziness. I swear I could even see foam forming at the corners of his mouth. Then he started screaming. And while I had heard him talk before he usually talked at a somewhat normal tone. While his voice usually sounded rich and like dripping honey, right now he sounded like an outright beast, which he was. 

'The girly escaped!' he screamed and stuck a taser to Tim's leg and he screamed in agony. I had to cover my mouth so i didn't scream as well. 'Tell me where she is!' he screamed at Tim. 'I don't know where she is, I swear!' he yelled. Eztli pushed the button on the taser again and Tim screamed even louder than before. I had to look away, because I had a feeling I was going to throw up or scream or both.

'You're out of your mind!' Tim screamed at him hoarsely after Eztli was finished with him and began walking towards the doors again. At his words however, he stopped and turned around. I could see a smirk crossing his features and his eyes held a twinkle of something else than just craziness now. 'Well of course I am out of my mind,' he said 'it's dark and scary in there'. With that he turned around with the smirk still intact on his face he shut and locked the door behind him.


	4. The poppy seeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Point of view is back to normal

As soon as Eztli left the room I jumped out of my hiding spot and ran towards Tim. I quickly took my pocket knife out and cut the ropes. I then looked at Tim. He obviously looked exhausted and in a great deal of pain but kind of happy he was alive, which I could really understand at this point. We then started looking around ourselves. 'Where are we?' I said that more to myself than to him but he still answered. 'We're in an abandoned mine.' he said while he warmed up his hands. I had to admit, it really was pretty cold in this room. Tim sat on the floor, which was expected, since he was tazered multiple times just a few minutes ago. I spotted a few crates in the corner of the room and pushed them below the air raft I came through before and then stacked them. When I was finished, Tim looked a little bit better but still in a lot of pain. I then helped Tim climb in and we began moving down the raft while looking for an exit. We were crawling for quite some time and then we reached what seemed like the end of the raft. I turned to Tim with a questioning look on my face and he asked me for my pocket knife. I handed it to him and he unscrewed the screws on the corners of the air raft. The thing that we thought was a wall was actually just another exit out of the raft.  
It fell off its hinges and we suddenly saw the most horrific views you could ever imagine. We entered a small room which was full of dead teenage girls. They were all dressed in black covered with fluorescent blankets and their faces were colored with purple circles. And not only was this one of the scariest things I've ever seen, the smell was horrible as well. I had absolutely no idea what to do and then I heard Tim behind me who started taking photos of the room of horror for evidence, in case we ever made it out of here alive of course. We again started looking for another exit, but then we heard steps again, which could only mean that Eztli was coming closer to the room we were in right now.  
I quickly pulled Tim to a chest I have noticed while entering the room. It was painted red with hellfire-like flames decorating its sides. We both climbed into it and just then Eztli stepped into the room. I expected him to look closely in every corner, but he just gave the room a quick one-over and left. I guess he didn't think it would be possible for me and Tim to reach this room. Only when Eztli left I had noticed that I was holding Tims hand this whole time. I quickly let go of it and blushed, but since it was remotely dark, Tim didn't see it. Or at least I hoped so. We quietly climbed out of the chest and started to look for windows, unlocked doors, or anything that we could use to get out of this horrible place. As I was looking around myself I saw a wooden plank under one of the dead girls and I pointed it out to Tim. The last we wanted was to touch the girls, not even to talk about moving them around the room. But unfortunately we had no other choice and we quickly moved over to the dead girl that set over the wooden plank. She had chestnut colored hair and fair skin, which Eztli colored with yellow paint. She was dressed in black skinny jeans, a white and black crop top, leather jacket and black converse. She seemed familiar to me from somewhere but I didn't know from where. When I told Tim this, he nodded and told me her name was Charlotte Thomas and that she was kidnapped about 7 months ago. She was visiting the college in the nearby town. Her parents, friends and the police was looking for her for about 5 months but then the case became so called 'cold' and they stopped looking for her and told the public that Charlotte was dead. The truth however, I guess we'll never know it, but if maybe, just maybe they would have looked for her for just a little while longer, then they maybe would have found her. With that thought in my head I began thinking about what was going to happen to us. Were we ever going to get out of here? Was anybody even looking for us? Tim could only answer my second question and told me that the police was indeed looking for me.  
Once we have moved Charlotte off the wooden plank we saw a small iron hoop on top of it which we pulled up and it revealed a tunnel going straight down, it seemed to go on forever from what we could see as well. Neither of us knew where the tunnel led or how to get down it for that matter but then Tim pointed out holes that seemed as if though the were dug into the walls and they looked as if they were used for holding and stepping support. He said he was gonna go down it first and I let him. He put the flashlight that we found in the chest between his teeth and began to descend down the tunnel.  
In a way I was really scared of Eztli's hideout, which was of course completely normal, considering what I've been through and what I saw. Of course I was never gonna tell Tim that I was scared of it, partly because I didn't want him to look at me like I was a scared little girl and partly because how brave and strong he has been through this whole thing. Even though he had been tazered he wasn't complaining or anything but was just moving after me patiently all the way through the air raft.  
While we were descending down the tunnel, I smelled something weird, like poppy. After a while we reached the bottom of the tunnel and on our right we could see a pretty big window made of iron bars and behind it we could see a cellar which had loads of tufts of poppy hanging from the ceiling and the floor was covered with some kind of a fabric which had the seeds of the poppy flowers collecting on it.  
After that we arrived to another window made of iron bars on hinges. We opened the window and climbed into the warm room behind it. The room turned out to be a nicely furnished kitchen, which to me stood out, because of how cold and impersonal the rest of the mine was. We then started opening the cupboards, looking for some food, because we were both hungry. In one of the cupboards Tim found a packet of chocolate chip cookies and some dried fruit and in another one I found a syringe and a bowl full of colourless liquid. I didn't know what it could be. I showed the bowl to Tim and he looked me in the eyes and said a word that shook me to my core: 'morphine'. 'How do you know?' I asked him. 'The school I went to before, it was a boarding school in Australia, we worked in the nature and in the laboratory a lot and we learned about all kinds of acids, poisons and venoms. Including morphine.' he answered. 'This was probably how Eztli was able to kidnap those girls without them screaming. If we take this bowl and the syringe with us, he won't be able to kill anymore girls with it and the syringe has got to have a few fingerprints on it as well. Which means we can use it as proof. As soon as we get out of this crazy maze, we are going straight to the police station and tell them what happened to us. If they'll believe us of course' he continued. So I put both items into a plastic bag I found on the kitchen island and wrapped them in it. 'Of course there's always the chance that Eztli is going to escape' I said. Tim didn't say anything to that, he just opened the packet of cookies and we both ate some, deciding to save most of them for later.  
I put the food and the plastic bag inside of my jacket pockets, when we heard a voice. Two voices, to be exact. What the hell was going on in this mine? Was there somebody else helping Eztli? We looked for an escape route or a hideout but this time there was truly nowhere to go. We were trapped! Tim then whispered to me to hind the kitchen island and I did so. He then hid behind the door, the rolling pin held high in the air. I looked at him terrified, not knowing what he was going to do. The next moment the doors opened and in walked Eztli. 'Those little bastards escaped, if I could at least used the girl and stick the poison in her!'. He was angry and swearing. After him entered another person-a woman! She was about 1,80 metres tall, slim but muscular at the same time and her eyes looked sunk in. She had black hair and blue eyes that radiated anger as well as Eztli's. She was dressed in camo pants, black combat boots, green shirt with a black skull and a black leather jacket. Her arms and neck were covered in tattoos of fire breathing dragons and white skulls with fiery red eyes. 'Listen Ez' she began 'if the kids escaped, they must still be here. I mean this place in enormous; more than 50 rooms and halls, connected with stone passages, most of them don't even have lightning!'. 'I know Rachel, I'm gonna find them soon, I have a feeling they're close' Eztli agreed with her then he went to close the door and saw Tim standing behind it with a rolling pin in his hands. 'What the?' Eztli began, but he never got to finish his sentence, because in the next second Tim hit him in the head with the rolling pin. 'Ez? What happened?' the woman asked and in the next second she was lying on the floor as well, next to Eztli. 'Now what?' I asked Tim. 'You heard what the woman said, there's more than 50 rooms and halls in here, how the hell are we ever gonna get out of here?. Tim looked shaken up, but he just took my hand in his and pulled me towards the door that Eztli and the woman had come through before. At first I wanted to resist, but seeing as I had no better idea, I led him lead me down the passage.


	5. The death mask

We've been running for a few minutes now and Tim was still holding my hand. Not that I was complaining, but still. The whole time we didn't say word to each other and just ran on in silence. Suddenly we came to a stop in front of a pair of large doors and upon opening them we entered a large room, it looked more like some kind of concert hall than a room to be honest.  
This room had the ceiling and the walls covered in mirrors and the floor was made together of fluorescent pink tiles. We walked in further into the room and that was when I asked myself how many more horrible things will I have to see in this house of horror.

For there in front of us stood three surgery operating tables, each one had a girl lying on top of them. The girls were once again all dressed in black, except this time, they weren't covered with colorful blankets. However, right now I wished they were. All three girls had their eyes closed, their bodies had a y cut shape on them and they all looked as if somebody cut them open and then stitched them back up expertly. Next to the girls stood a coller and even without looking in, I knew what I would find if I were to open the cooler.  
The last few months there had been a lot of talk on the TV and the internet about the black market organ selling. There were people, I guess Eztli was one of them, who killed people, took their organs and then sold them for sky high prices on the black market. The government and the police have tried to stop them multiple times, but it was always to no use, there were just too many of them. Some worked together, some worked lone and the ones that worked together never wanted to betray their partners and tell the police their names or hideouts.

Tim took some more photos and then we ran on down the hall to look for another exit, even though the corridors seemed endless we were both determined to get out of there.  
The next place we came to was once obviously a cavern but was now turned into some kind of an Aztec temple. How much more crazier could Eztli and this whole thing even get?

The temple was decorated with lots of candles and on the walls hang photos of people mid-torture. I couldn't even look at them because it sent literal chills down my spine. There were also some really weird sounds echoing around the place. I know it sounds weird, but it really sounded as if though people were being tortured. The temple was quite big as well. It was 15 metres long, 8 metres wide and 10 meters high. The floors, walls and the ceiling were all stone, not colored, they just remained in their natural color. On the opposite side of the door, on the far end of the temple stood a pretty big altar, and there were also a few statues of eagles situated at the sides of the room. I remember that I read somewhere that in the Aztec colture eagles signs or statues represented sun and warriors and that serpents represented fire or water. As I looked around, I could see a few stone serpents curling around the main altar. I guess in this case the eagles represented warriors and the serpents represented fire.

I had no idea for how long Eztli would remain knocked out, so we had to hurry. As we were searching for another exit out of the temple we heard steps nearing it. Tim and I quickly ran behind the eagle statue and speak of the devil, Eztli himself walked through the doors. I had no idea how he managed to wake up so quickly or get here so soon after us, he probably had some secret passages or something and not only that but he also changed. Right now he was wearing an Aztec mask. The mask was quite scary to be honest. Where one would have a face, laid a design that was half skull half an imitation of a face in pain, while the skull half looked as if though it was grinning. In the place of ears there were two camouflage green earing-like circles. Out of the circles ran two wavy lines of the same colors along the side of the face that connected at the top of the head and the ends were colored gold. on the forehead there was a brown line that ran down next to the green lines except this one ran from the top to the bottom of the face and this one was straight, not wavy. Above it was a small gold symbol of what looked like a jaguar. In the place of hair ran two wide stripes that looked as if though they were representing hair. They were split into smaller sections, each one colored differently. On the top the 'hair' was colored blue, then as it went down to the bottom the colors changed. First it was a white-pink like color, then it was green, red and it ended with a darker, almost black brown. The mask what was called a death mask, or at least that's what I read in a scientific magazine. 

Eztli was wearing the traditional Aztec ceremonial outfit, used for sacrifices. Which meant he had on a skirt, woven from beads and some animal skin and other textures, didn't have a shirt on and was wearing sandals and a beaded wide necklace.   
What truly terrified me however, was when I saw what he was dragging on the floor behind him. There, wrapped in rusted chains, laid a girl, but she seemed kind of out of it. I assumed Eztli poisoned her with morphine to keep her silent and knocked out.  
The girl had short choppy blond hair and seemed pretty young as well. Not that Tim and I weren't young, we were both only 16 after all, but the girl seemed even younger. As if though she was around 13 or 14 years old. She was dressed in black shorts, a grey t-shirt, white shoes and had black snapback on. Eztli put her on the altar and then took out a 6 inch long bowie knife. It had a wooden handle and a carbon steel blade which was double-edged.

He then slowly neared the knife towards the girls neck and cut down painfully slow. Even from where Tim and I were sitting, we could see little droplets of blood dripping down the girls neck. Then he cut again and blood began to flow much faster. I turned my head towards Tim, because I just couldn't watch that anymore and he silently pulled me into an one-armed hug.

As the torturous sounds were playing all around us and I could see the blood and the girl every time I closed my eyes, I suddenly remembered something that happened to me a few years ago.

I was walking out of school, it was winter at the time, so the roads were covered in snow and ice. Then I heard somebody calling me. 'Hey Juliet! Where's your Romeo?'. I rolled my eyes, I was so tired of this jokes. Then I turned around and looked at the person that had spoken. It was Max Daniels, the most popular guy at school. People either loved or hated him. Guess which I was on! Yeah, I hated that guy. He always bullied people and made fun of everyone that didn't respect him. Around him stood a group of giggling girls-his fanclub if you will-and two of his best friends, John and Jack, his bodyguards, if you ask me. 'The only thing you know how to do is stand on a plank with wheels and drag black clothes on yourself. You look like a guy that dares nothing and is scared of everything. And I really doubt that that kind of a guy even exists!'. Ok, he was siriously pissing me off. 'Just shut up and get out of here would you?' I yelled at him. I saw him smirk at his two bodyguards and they stepped forward, grabbed my arms and slammed me on the floor so my head hit the hard ice underneath it. I could feel warm liquid under my head and I already knew that it was blood without even looking at it. They balled up snow and stuffed it into my jacket and shoes and I felt as if though ice was covering my whole body. But that still wasn't enough for them. Max pulled out a knife and cut through my black jeans right above my calves and then cut into my skin. He then grabbed some ice and stuck it down on the wound. It hurt like hell but I didn't scream because I knew if I did they'd just tease me even more. No, I raised my leg, even though it hurt a lot and kicked him straight in the nose. He was thrown back on the pavement and I ran back towards the school to get to safety. The very next day they expelled Max and his gang and I finally had at least a little bit of peace.

The memory of blood brought me back to the present and I wished it didn't when I saw the scene in front of me. Blood was still dripping down the poor girl's neck and Eztli was dancing around the girl, his hands soaked with her blood. I was fighting with the idea to scream out loud when Tim did something unbelievable . He grabbed a nearby candlestick and threw it at Eztli. It him him in the nape and he was knocked out cold. We quickly ran towards him and after Tim took photos of everything we tied Eztli up. Not knowing what to do with the girl we covered her with a blanket we find behind the altar and then ran out of the door on the opposite side of the temple.

We came face to face with another door, decorated with stars, fire flames and pictures of Aztec masks.  
We carefully opened the door and walked into another nightmare.


	6. 'Twas the night of the backstories

The door opened to reveal a smaller room, richly decorated. All the walls were draped with silk curtains that were either blue or pink. From the ceiling hang different Aztec masks and suits and in the corner to our right stood a cabinet shaped like a star. We opened the cabinet and saw that it was full of little bottles of opium. Tim pocketed two and took a picture of the whole cabinet with a plan to show them to the police as proof. As there were loads of masks hanging from the ceiling, we decided to look at some of them, because to be fair, they were pretty fascinating. Some were blue, some were green and some were gold. One mask hanger was empty and I was guessing that was where the mask that Eztli was wearing before was hanging.

Tim started moving the curtains and behind the blue ones he found a small black notebook, which surprised me, considering how colorful everything else in this mine was. Tim opened the notebook and we could see the things in it were written with green ink and in every bottom right corner was a small red Aztec sign. We started reading it and we quite quickly found out that it was a diary. On the top of the first page there was a date that read: May 7th 2000. Underneath the date there was a little bit of text written as well. Tim started reading it aloud. 'Today is the day that I start with The plan. I have to go. I can't stay a minute more. I'm 24 years old. Today my little brother turned 6. I have to go right now. I have to take a new dose of my medication every day now. It's slowly killing me. I want to kill myself sometimes. But I can't. I have to have my revenge. He took everything I had away from me. My friends, my freedom, my health.' This was where the text ended and there was no signature or anything else of the kind. We looked at each other. The diary was probably Eztli's . But who was the person that he needed to get revenge on? And what did the girls have to do with that?

And then all of a sudden Tim fell down. I screamed, but not long after that, my vision got dark and I blacked out.

When I started to regain consciousness again I noticed that I was tied up again, this time on the ground and my hands were tied to some pipes behind my back. I tried screaming for help and tugging on the ropes, but to no avail. I looked around myself and on the other side of the room I could see a guy about my age, 17 or 18, also tied up but he looked as if though he gave up on life itself already. 'Hey,' I said to him, 'who are you?'. The guy stirred a little but he didn't really look surprised that somebody else was also tied up in the same room. The room was only lighted by one candle so I couldn't see the guy all that clearly, considering he was on the other end of the room and the room itself was quite big for a cell as well. The walls, floor and ceiling were once again made of stone, but this time, there was no carpet on the floor. 

I already thought that the guy wasn't going to speak when he said 'Ethan. My name is Ethan Castro. Who are you and what are you doing here?' he asked. 'My name is Juliet. Juliet Moore.' I then proceeded to tell him how I ended here and then asked him about his backstory. 'Well that is a long story. Long and sad. Are you sure you wanna hear it?' he asked 'Well we've got time, don't we?' I answered. 'Alright then, just don't say I didn't warn you'. Then Ethan told Juliet the most interesting but at the same time the most horrible and the saddest story she had ever heard.

'It all started with my parents meeting. The way they met was pretty strange already. I know different people have different stories of how they met their spouses, but most of them meet each other in bars or at parties or they know each other from school. My parents however... My mom went into the forest to get some berries and firewood, because she lived in a really poor household and her family has been starving for a few days. While my mom was gathering firewood however, she felt a very sharp pain near her ankle. So sharp, she almost passed out from it. She fell on the ground and when she looked down she saw a shutter buried in her skin and her leg was coated in blood. The pain was unbearable and as she laid on the ground to release at least some of the pain, out of the forest walked my father with a gun on his shoulders. He hurried towards my mom and started apologizing. He told her that his friend was a hunter in training and he decided to take him along for the day. However, his friend didn't know how to shoot very well and he accidently ended up shooting my mom in the leg. He took her to the village to get her healed, but what he didn't know however, was that my mom had a very weak immune system already and the shot wound in her leg was infected. This was just them meeting.' At this point, Ethan took a breath and then carried on with the story.

'My mom's foot was getting weaker and weaker in just few weeks time. At first it was just little bits of pain throughout the day but then the just started getting worse and worse. There were days when she couldn't get out of bed, not to even mention walking. They gave her some sort of medication that helped her dull the pain so she could at least walk without pain. During those weeks, my father and my mom started getting closer together, they became friends and then a couple. A few years down the line they got married. One year after their wedding, my brother Aaron James was born. He was a healthy baby, born at the right time and everything. But when he was two years old, the doctors figured out that he had some sort of a disease. None of the doctors could figure out what it was, but when Aaron was four years old and he started getting these panic attacks, they figured out that the disease was actually a side effect of the medicine that my mom was taking while she was pregnant with him. So, Aaron had to spend most of his childhood and teenage years in different hospitals and health homes. Then when he was 18 my mom was pregnant with me, except this time, she wasn't on her pain medication and even though her pain was worse than before and there were days when her whole leg was shaking. All that just to make sure that I wouldn't get any kinds of diseases like Aaron did. So I was really healthy, but mom however, was not. Are you sure you want to hear this?' I couldn't do anything else but nod. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing.

'Ok then, your choice-your mistakes. Anyways, her pained leg took so much energy out of her that she couldn't even walk anymore because her body had gotten so used to the medication that helped her walk. Then about three years after my birth, she died. Considering I was only 3 at the time, I never really knew my mom. It hit Aaron the hardest, because they were very close. He was 21 at the time. For three years, we were all in this mourning-like period but then my father who just couldn't deal with it anymore and had fallen deep into depression after mom's death saw no point in life anymore so he killed himself. That year, shortly after I was 6 years old and my brother was 24, Aaron left. And I didn't see him for... well wait until the end of the story and you'll know. From then on I was raised by my cousin Jamie. He found himself a job and tried going to school in the mornings and then to work in the afternoons. He took any and all offers he got, just to make enough for our survival. But as a few years went by, he got mixed up with some bad people and things just went downhill from there. It started with smoking. Every day when I came home from school, the whole house smelled of cigarettes. Then he started binge-drinking. There were empty bottles of Vodka, Tequila and other drinks rolling around the house. Then one day I came home and I saw Jamie on the couch, a syringe in his hand and he was trying to get heroin into his veins. After that he was lost. Whenever I saw him he looked like a ghost. He didn't eat, he didn't drink, he didn't sleep. All he could think about was when and how he could get his fix. If I wanted to eat I had to either beg for food on the street or I had to steal. Then one day Jamie disappeared . But it wasn't like most of the time when he would be gone for a few days or a week. That time I waited for him for 3 weeks, then when he was gone for more than 2 months I gave up. I heard one day that he died. Car accident. That was when I started living a different life that I should begin a long time ago. I was 9 years old at the time. I got enrolled in some social justice home things, I started training football and I was finally able to visit school again regularly, which was great. Long story short, I tried to live a normal life and I was pretty good at it too. Then when I was high school we went to visit some caves and mines nearby. When I was in there I remembered how Aaron once took me to an abandoned mine when I was about 5 years old. I know this might sound a little odd, but at that time I didn't really think all that much about my brother. I mean, he left when I was 6 years old and since then, 10 years have passed already . So I decided to go and look for him.'

'Now, get ready for the darkest part of the story. I couldn't really remember where the mine was because all that happened 10 years ago and I was already 17 by then and living in a completely different part of town then where we used to live. I found it eventually of course. After about one week. I was a little scared as well, because let's be honest, how big were the chances that he was living in an abandoned mine? Turns out, pretty big. When I got in, everything was very dark and well, mine-like. But the deeper I went into the mine, the newer it became. The corridors were tiled, lighted and warmer. When I was walking for some time I came to big iron doors and upon opening them I found a big Aztec temple. As I was watching it as if though out of nowhere, came Aaron. I almost didn't recognize him. His hair was longer, and he was dressed in some colorful clothes. He didn't recognize me either, he put a knife to my neck and demanded I tell him who I was. When I did he released me and just looked at me for about a minute. Then he said that he was really glad to see me and that he was very sorry for everything bad he has done to me. Then he asked me how I was doing and I answered him and then I asked him about the temple and he just turned away. I followed him to the kitchen where he took out a pack of cookies and asked me if I wanted some tea. I said yes and he set out to make it. I asked him where the toilet was and then when I went down the hall I instead of turning right turned left and I came into the room with the dead girls. I got so scared I almost fainted. When I turned around to leave the room I almost crashed into Aaron who said to me with a sweet voice: 'Where are you going little brother of mine? We hadn't even had tea yet.' With shaky hands I took the cup and took a few sips. Then my head got dizzy and when I turned to look up at Aaron I could see him grinning evilly at me. Then, the next thing I remembered was being tied up to this wall in here and in front of me there was a note with the words: 'There are some things you weren't supposed to see. You were just at a wrong place at a wrong time, that's all. When you'll be older you'll understand. And no hard feellings, alright little bro?'. And so I've been here for about a month, Aaron, or as he calls himself Eztli, brings me food and water and that is it. This is my story, now you know how I wound up here and why I said that it was long and complicated and sad.' I couldn't believe my own ears! That a brother could tie up his brother in a cold, prison like cell! It was horrible to even think about!

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Meanwhile Tim was strapped onto a white operational table in a florescent green room. When he looked around himself he saw a table to his right, which had a few syringes , scissors and scalpels. At first he couldn't remember how he had gotten into the room but then he remembered Eztli's diary and the opium and Juliet... Juliet! Where was Juliet? She wasn't in the room with him so Tim guessed that Eztli had taken her to a different room. He was only hoping she was alright, not tortured or even worse. No one could hear him, but it was probably still worth a shot. He screamed. 'Hello? Can anyone hear me? Is anybody here?' Of course nobody answered him. Then the room's door opened and in came a woman. Tim remembered her from the kitchen. 

She stepped closer to Tim and started talking. 'My name is Dr. Davis, we usually don't take boys, but in this case, we thought we could make a small exception.'. With that she picked up a scalpel and some scissors and cut Tim's shirt open. Then she cut into the upper part of Tim's stomach and little droplets of blood showed. Tim screamed in pain and tried to get out of the bonds but no matter how hard he struggled he just couldn't escape. She cut even deeper and Tim blacked out again.


	7. Charlotte's help

Ethan and I were talking quietly when we suddenly heard screaming. It was Tim and if I had to guess someone had to be torturing him bad for him to be screaming this loud. Because he didn’t say a word after Eztli tasered him. ‘Tim! Tim! What’s going on?’ I screamed. ‘There’s no point in yelling you know.’ Ethan said, ‘It’s not going to get you anywhere.’ ‘Ok, so now what?’ I said, ‘I can’t just let Tim be tortured!’ ‘Well you don’t have much choice now do you?’ taunted Ethan and if I weren’t tied up, I would gladly give him a black eye. How can he just give up like that? Then I heard the screaming again, but this time it was different, and it didn’t sound like Tim at all. It sounded as if you combined the screams of thousands of people that were all being tortured. ‘What is that?’ I screamed, ‘Where is it coming from?’ ‘It’s an Aztec whistle.’ Ethan spoke, ‘Whenever you blow into it, it produces a sound alike to the screams of tortured people. It’s shaped like a head and specifically designed to produce voices like that. I think it was used in some Aztec sacrifice ceremonies as well.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Who could ever come up with an idea, to create a whistle that produces sounds like that! ‘We have to escape, and we have to do it right now!’ I said to Ethan. ‘I already told you! It’s impossible!’ ‘Nothing is impossible, come on Ethan!’ But Ethan still wasn’t giving in.   
I really couldn’t believe how one person could just give up like that. I didn’t even really know Ethan, but still. ‘How can you just give up like that?’ I screamed at him, not even caring if anybody heard me or not, I just wanted to get out of here. ‘We can at least try! Or are you really too scared to even try to escape?’ I asked, ‘How dare you!’ he screamed back, ‘I have been in this mine for a month and believe me when I tell you that it is impossible to escape from it. If it wasn’t, do you really think I would be sitting in this hellhole and talking to somebody like you?’ I really didn’t want to give up, but I had to admit that he was right. I leaned back on the wall when I felt something under the stone board that I was sitting on.

The whole room was out of stone boards, so it wasn’t quite like the other ones. It seemed more human made but still incredibly old. The floor was made of smaller boards, some of which were cracked down the middle or around the edges and the walls were made of bigger stone boards, which were about 2 meters high and half a meter wide.  
Anyways, I tried to move a little so I could move my hand under the stone board and figure out just what exactly was hiding under it. Once I managed my task I could under the stone board with my right hand and pulled out a small black notebook, with white flowers on the covers. Ethan came over to me and brought with him the candle that was previously standing in the middle of the room to shed a little bit of light onto the notebook that I was holding. 

When I opened it, my breath got caught in my throat as I read who the notebook belonged to. In the bottom right corner, two words were neatly written: Charlotte Thomas. That was the dead girl that Tim and I had to move to be able to escape the room full of dead girls. ‘Ethan look!’ I pointed at the signature. ‘Do you know her?’ he asked me. ‘No. Yes. Well, not really…’ I then told him how I knew Charlotte and he nodded and turned the page. We saw that, just like Eztli’s notebook, this was a diary as well, except instead of the dates, the pages were marked with the number of the days she was in the mine for. For example, one page was marked with the sixth day, the other as the hundredth and so on.

Ethan and I started reading the diary and we found out that Charlotte’s story actually wasn’t all that different from mine, except for the fact that she was kidnapped when she was going back home from a party she was at with her friends. We found out that she was 23 years old and was indeed visiting the last year at the college in the neighborhood town where she was studying modern literature. As it seemed Eztli first locked her in the cell that Ethan and I were sitting in right now. Eztli would bring her food and something to drink every day and once a month he would bring her a bowl of water and a towel so that she could clean herself up at least a little bit. Seeing as she was locked in the same cell for seven months, Eztli untied her for the same reason he untied Ethan- to show his power. While she was untied, she of course explored every inch of the place and tried to find a way to escape. When she was exploring it, she found something that she wrote down in her notebook about and when I read what that was; I felt something that I haven’t felt for a really long time- I felt hope. Because on the page before last Charlotte wrote something about a secret passage that started right in this cell.   
She guessed that it was made by the people that made the mine and actually used it for mining and the passage could be used as an easier way to transport the ore that they dug up here. According to Charlotte’s notebook, in the passage, there were old, rusty rails that could be used for an old trolley to push the ore around in.  
I was guessing that Eztli either didn’t know about the passage or he simply forgot about it. After all, the mine was gigantic and even if he did manage to find the passage, he has been here for more than 10 years and the human mind can only remember so much, especially if it’s as messed up as Eztli’s was. 

Now, to opening the passage. Charlotte wrote that you had to move the eight stone wall board from the right to the left and once you did that, the board would open up, apparently as if though it was on hinges, and behind the board there should be an iron lever. Once you pulled it, the fourth stone wall board would move aside and reveal the passage behind it. Considering how tall and how wide the stone walls were, the passage, as well as ore moving would be possible.  
This data was written in the notebook a day before Ethan was locked up in here. From then on, there were no other information written in the diary of Charlotte Thomas. I could only assume what happened to her. She probably used the passage to try to escape, but while doing so, she rushed into Eztli, who probably took her to another cell and then killed her after he kidnapped me and then put her in the room with all the other girls, where Tim and I found her. That would make explain why she still looked so life like.  
Which just left us with one tiny problem. I was still tied up and it seemed as if though Eztli has taken my pocketknife. When I mentioned this to Ethan, he pulled a porcelain shard out of his pocket and turned it around in the light of his candle. ‘Why do you have that? And where did you get it?’ I asked him. ‘Well to answer your second question first.’ he said, ‘I got it when Eztli once brought me tea to drink and I threw it on the floor because I didn’t want to drink it and then took the largest piece and saved it. As for why I have it…’ he looked at the candle, ‘There were times in this mine, when I felt like giving up and just ending it all. I felt like life would be so much easier if I just ended it. So, when I saved the shard, I saved it with the intention of cutting my veins with it and just ending my life there and then. But… I don’t know, every time I came even close to actually doing so, I just couldn’t do it. I guess I was just too scared of it, which is ironic, considering what I’ve been through in this mine. But now, it looks like it will finally have some use huh?’ he looked at me with a bitter smile.

I felt really bad about what Ethan had to go through. His mother dying when he was only a child, his father killing himself, his brother abandoning him, his cousin drinking himself to death, being kidnapped by his brother and then thinking of suicide almost every day he was in here.  
I offered him my hands and he started to cut through the ropes with the shard. It took some time, more than it would’ve taken than if I cut it with my pocketknife, but eventually I was free. I put the Charlotte’s diary back where I found it, just in case Ethan and I wouldn’t make it out alive and somebody else was locked up in here.  
We then went to the eight stone board on the wall and moved it so that it opened. It really was on hinges and behind it was really an iron lever, just like Charlotte wrote. We pulled it and the fourth board on the wall moved aside and once Ethan lighted it up with the candle, we could see the old rails in the passage.  
I couldn’t believe we actually found the secret passage, our way out of here! Now we just had to find Tim and the exit, and we would be free. I knew that the task was way easier said than done, but I was willing to give it a shot. I would not give up when freedom was so close to me. Or as Robert Frost once said: Freedom lies in being bold. And in this moment, I absolutely agreed with the American poet. I had to be brave to get out of here. I had to save myself, and I had to save Tim and I had to save Ethan. But most of all I had to take care that no other person, neither girl nor boy nor anyone in between ever had to face the fate that I was facing right now. 

Ethan took the candle with us, so we would have at least a little source of light with us. We then started our adventure down the secret passage. We walked and walked for what seemed like hours, but we were probably just walking for a couple of minutes. Our candle was also melting more and more during our walk and we both had a bad feeling that it would burn out soon. And just as we expected, the candle burned out and the dark swallowed us completely. Ethan then pulled a lighter out of his pocket and it was a good thing he did so too because soon we were faced with about ten stairs and if it weren’t for the lighter, we would trip over them and fall straight on our faces. After we got to the top of the stairs, we reached a door and we very quietly leaned against to try and hear if there was anyone else on the other side, but as we didn’t hear anyone, we slowly opened it and we found a place in front of us that I was sadly already familiar with. It was also a room that I had hoped I would never have to see again. It was the room that had the operating tables in it and the freezers that Tim and I found while we were trying to find our way out of the mine.

Ethan and I opened the door and to our horror we saw a bloody body on the table, hooked up to some machines that seemed to help the person on the table to breathe. As we got closer to the table, I thought that the face did look kind of familiar to me, even though it was covered in blood and cuts. Did I see this person at school before? Was it a family friend?  
Only as I stepped right next to the person’s face, did I realize who it was. And when I did, I felt as if though my whole world came crashing down on me, for I knew the person lying in front of me.


	8. Happy, happy memories

Because yes, of course I knew the person on the table. Of course, I knew his face and his smile and the way his eyes lit up when he smiled. I knew what his laugh sounded like and I knew what he looked like angry and worried and in pain. I knew his voice and I knew his passions. Because I felt like I knew this person so well, yet for so little time.  
For the person in front of me, on the table, with a bloody face and being hooked up to machines, with closed eyes and ripped clothes was Tim.

When I saw him on that table, all lifeless and bloody, I sobbed and almost fell down, my knees felt weak and I probably would fall down if Ethan wasn’t holding me up. I couldn’t believe it. Of course the thought of not being able to escape or being killed by Eztli was always at the back of my mind, but I still couldn’t believe that Tim was cut open and bleeding on the table in front of me, without even knowing if he’ll survive.

I was only dimly aware of the fact that I completely spaced out and that Ethan was shaking my shoulders. My mind slowly came back to the real world and I realized that Ethan was trying to tell me something. ‘What?’, I asked him, with tears chocking my voice. ‘I know this is a stupid question to ask but are you okay?’, he asked me, his green eyes boring into mine. He ran a hand through his dirty blond hair and looked at me with his eyes full of worry. To be honest, I didn’t know what to say. I obviously wasn’t ok, but I also knew I had to keep going, I had to, because if I didn’t that would mean that I wouldn’t be able to help Tim survive, if he could, I couldn’t save myself, Ethan and I couldn’t stop the madness going on.  
‘I’m fine.’ I replied. ‘But we do have to get out of here, or at least call someone to come here and shut down this operation.’ I said. ‘Well to call someone, we would have to get out of this mine, because there is absolutely no reception in here at all and Eztli doesn’t have land line phones here either for the fear of someone using them and calling for help from the inside.’ Ethan said. ‘Alright well then we’ll just have to get to the surface and try to call for help there.’ ‘We could do that, there’s a small store near the entrance of the mine if remember correctly.’ offered Ethan.   
In that minute we both decided that we would do whatever it took to escape this hellish nightmare. We decided to try to get back to the outside world. I think we both knew that it wouldn’t be easy at all, the opposite of that really. It would be a miracle if we could ever get out of here alive. This mine was gigantic and full of criss-crossed passages, most of which weren’t even lighted. If I ever got out of this alive, I would have to write a book about it, just to get it all out of my system. 

I dug into the pockets of Tim’s pants and pulled out his phone, which had photos of the mine that Tim took while in here. The phone was completely useless for calling, because Eztli took out the card and only left the battery in it.   
We started on the journey towards the top. I looked at Tim one last time and promised to him in my mind that I would come back for him as soon as I could. I took some of the surgery yarn that I found on the table next to Tim and a scalpel. We could tie the yarn to the walls and that way mark our way to come back later and also to know whether we were walking in circles around the mine.  
Ethan and me carefully opened the door and looked down the hallway to see if either Eztli or that women that was with him, were there. Luckily, there was nobody coming towards us, so we started walking down the hallway in the opposite way we came from. We came to a corner and tied the piece of yarn to the iron that was hanging out of the wall. Then after looking around the corner, we continued on our way. We repeated this every time when we came to a corner or a place where more passages met. Until eventually we came to a tunnel that was pitch black. We couldn’t see or hear anything except for the water dripping down the walls and falling from the ceilings on the floor.

I was never really afraid of the dark, to be honest I loved the night more than I loved the day, but that tunnel was really scary and just made feel so insecure about myself. I just felt as if though I could just give up then and there and not go on. But then I remembered Tim back in that room, bleeding and barely alive. We had to get out of here, we had to!  
So, me and Ethan took down the dark tunnel, shadows swallowing us and the light. The tunnel was so long, we couldn’t see the end of it. Do you know the saying ‘Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel’? Yeah, that phrase would be really useless here, because, well, we couldn’t see it.  
We kept walking down the dark tunnel when I felt like I stepped on something. I turned the flashlight that we were using to light the way towards the thing on the floor. Tim and I found the flashlights in Eztli’s kitchen and we were using them to light our way.

It was not what I was expecting it to be. I thought it would be a stone or a twig, I was even prepared for a bone. But not this. It was not something that one would usually find on the floor of a dark mine tunnel, then again, since not many people walk through dark mine tunnels, they may not find anything at all. The thing on the floor was a name tag that doctors and nurses pin to their clothes in the hospital. On it was written a name Rachel Davis. It was the name of the woman that was with Eztli. I knew that because that was what Eztli called her when we saw them in the kitchen. I guessed that she was probably the one that was performing surgery on all of these people. After all, with things like that, you had to know what you were doing, or you made one wrong move and the person on the table in front of you wound up dead. And guessing by what Ethan told me about his brother, I strongly doubted that he spent the years of his disappearance getting a medical education and career. I picked up the name tag and put it in my pocket to show it to the police if we were to ever get out of here, and we carried on.

After what felt like forever, we finally came to the end of the tunnel and to a lighted room. It was nothing special, really. Stone walls, floor and ceiling and at the end the room split again into three passages. The only thing even remotely out of space in this room was a wooden cupboard, placed inside one of the stone walls. Ethan and I walked over to it and opened it. The doors of the cupboards creaked annoyingly and opened. Inside it, was a single photo album and a green ink ball point pen. I took the album of the shelf of the cupboard and opened it. I could hear Ethan gasp beside me, and I turned to look at him. His face was the color of chalk, his eyes widened in surprise and shock, and his eyebrows furrowed. I looked back at the photo. It had a boy about three years old sitting under a Christmas tree, his face one of delight, with his eyes shining and his mouth pulled up into a smile. In his hands he was holding a present that was being handed to him by the boy sitting next to him. The young boy looked around 3 years old, had green eyes and dirty blond hair, while his brother looked about 20 years old and had shaggy dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. And while he looked beautiful, he also looked sad. His eyes held a kind of sadness that a person at his age shouldn’t know. His mouth was turned up into a bitter smile, but you could see that he was faking it for the person taking the picture and for the little boy sitting next to him. I looked at the picture again. More clearly this time. A little boy, with green eyes and dirty blond hair, an older boy sitting next to him, with slightly tan skin, dark hair and bright blue eyes. About 18 years of difference between them… Were those Ethan and Aaron James-now Eztli- when they were young? 

I looked at Ethan again and I could see it in his eyes that I was right even if I didn’t say what I was thinking, he knew what was on my mind. He looked at me, those green eyes somehow the same as they were in the picture, yet so different. They were dull now, with no brightness or joy in them anymore. And Aaron James (I have decided to call him by his real name while talking about past him), was obviously so different as well. Of course, he still looked beautiful, but in the picture, he looked like an almost normal college guy, while now he looked like, well, a crazy sociopath. His blue eyes were still as deep as the sea, his cheek bones still sharp, but while that made him look attractive in the photo, now it just made him look crazier. Before his blue eyes expressed sadness and a little bit of love for his baby brother, but now they shone with anger and craziness.  
And it was the same with Ethan, so happy before, so sad and disappointed now. The next picture was taken just a minute after that. In his hands Ethan held a blue and white stuffed elephant with a red collar around its neck.

The next photo was taken probably about a year after that. On it was just Ethan, now four years old, sitting in front of chocolate cake, that looked homemade, it was doused with blue sprinkles and whipped cream and if had to guess, Aaron James probably made it for his little brother. Ethan was giving a big, toothy smile at the camera as he blew out his four birthday candles, the blue and white elephant sitting in his lap.

I went on in the album, the next few photos were all mostly of Ethan, either at home during the celebrations, or on playgrounds, in the forest, always with the blue and black elephant in tow, sometimes Aaron James was with him, sometimes he wasn’t. But then came a photo that broke my heart. It was blurry and wrinkled. On it, a six-year-old Ethan was sitting on a bed that was too big for him, clutching in his hands the blue and white elephant, now worn out. Ethan was looking out of the window, into the rainy day. Infront of the house there was nothing and nobody. No car, nothing. Ethan’s face was streaked with tears, yet he tried to look brave. That was probably the day when Aaron James left.

As I flipped the pages, I found new photos of Ethan. These seemed to be taken with a cell phone, rather the and a real camera, as they weren’t so clear. On them, Ethan was going to school, playing with his friends, riding a bike. The last photo of him was when he was 13 years old.… But there were no more pictures of him and his blue and white elephant with a red collar.  
As I closed the album, I looked at Ethan. His green eyes were watering as he stared at the album, tears silently flowing down his cheeks. I turned around and hugged him. At first, he tried to fight it, but then he hugged me back and started sobbing into my shoulder. The more I found out about him, the more I felt sorry for him and wished that I could help him in some way, but I knew that what happened was in the past and there was no changing the past no matter how hard we tried.

After some time, he straightened up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I can’t believe’, he choked on tears, ’I can’t believe he kept all of those photos of when we were kids and even later, I mean it is kind of creepy that he was there when I was growing up with other people, but I thought that he never saw me again after he left. I guess I was wrong. That blue and white elephant, he bought that for me with his own money, our dad was deep in depression at the time, so he didn’t really work. Only Aaron James did. I don’t understand, all those photos, he kept them for a reason, and now he just locked me up? I mean where did that come from?’ I didn’t say anything, only… Considering that the last picture that Aaron James took of Ethan was when he was 13. That was 4 years before Ethan went looking for Aaron James and found him as Eztli. Something must have happened in those 4 years that changed Aaron James so much. What that was, I didn’t know. 

Ethan calmed down a bit and he spoke again. ‘Come on, we better keep going if we’re ever going to get out of this cursed mine.’ I wished he took some more time to process it all, but he was right, we had to keep going. There was only a matter of time when Eztli would come after us again. We kept walking and chose the passage to the left and tied the yarn on piece of rock sticking out of the stone wall. Every time we came to a room, we would do the same thing. Cut the yarn with the scalpel, walk through the room to the next passage, tie the yarn next to it and continue on. We always made big knots of yarn and tied them on things next to the passages that we were choosing, for the fear that we would run out of it if we were to untie it the whole way while walking through different passages and rooms. 

We kept walking, through lighted and pitch-dark corridors, through stone rooms and cold tunnels with dripping water. Then, when we were both on the edge of giving up, we saw something at the end of the passage. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was little slivers of light passing through the entrance of the mine that was half sealed up with wooden planks that were letting the light through.  
I couldn’t believe it. After so long of being stuck in this place, of being scared and beaten up and shocked by new discoveries, after being separated from Tim, meeting Ethan, finding Tim again in a state worse than imaginable, the exit was finally here.

We both ran towards it and squirmed through the holes in the entrance into the light of the day. Once we were outside, we were immediately shocked by the brightness of the sun, the blueness of the sky and by just generally everything around us. But we had to hurry up, Tim was still injured, on that table, Eztli and the doctor were still down there…

Ethan pointed to the small store that stood nearby and we both ran towards it. Once we pushed the door of it open all of the eyes turned towards us. Only then did I realize what we had to look like. Dirty and sweaty, with tears streaked faces, our clothes muddy… I decided that now wasn’t the time for explaining and we just asked if we could use someone’s phone to call the police. The store owner lent us hers and I quickly typed in the number and talked to the policeman on the other side. He was shocked, you could hear it in his voice, even if he did try to keep it professional. I told him everything; where we were, who we were, what happened… He then said that he would send a few men our way and to stay where we were. I hung up and returned the phone.   
So, the police were really coming, we were actually finally free. I almost felt happy. Almost.

Because this nightmare wasn’t over yet.


	9. Cruel reminders

Ethan and I sat in front of the store and stared in the distance where we could see the blinding lights of the police vehicles and the ambulance. I felt like my head was spinning and my thoughts were wrapped up around each other. I think that neither Ethan nor I could actually fully process that we escaped Eztli. Once we did, however, I was instantly cruelly reminded that Tim was still down there in God knows what kind of conditions. His stomach had been cut open, he was hooked up to devices to help him breath and even before that he was beaten up by Eztli countless times just like I was, and he was tasered on top of it too.

I was so deep in thought I didn’t even notice that the police cars had already parked in front of the store and the policemen walked towards us until I saw black shoes on the ground in front of me. I looked up and was faced with two policemen, the others were still in their cars next to the ambulance and the paramedics that got out of it. The two policemen standing in front of us were tall and in shape. The one standing in front of me had blond hair and brown eyes, his lips in a thin line and his hair neatly brushed back. The policeman standing in front of Ethan had light brown hair and caramel like eyes. He seemed nicer. His eyes shone with understanding and his light brown hair was more tousled. He also seemed younger than the other one. He was about 21 years old, while the blond haired one seemed to be about 40 years old.

Ethan and I stood up and introduced ourselves. The blond haired one introduced himself as Lieutenant Robert Stone and the brown haired one introduced himself as Sergeant Noah Cohen. They told us that they heard about us already and that the case of my disappearance and Tim’s was assigned to Lieutenant Stone and Ethan’s case was assigned to Sergeant Noah. I immediately decided to call Noah by his name in my head and Robert Stone by his surname. I think Ethan decided to do the same. Noah then started talking to Ethan, because he was his very first job he got when he started working at the police station. Lieutenant Stone then turned towards me to start his questioning.   
Of course, the first thing I told him about was the fact that Tim was still down in the mine and the condition that he was probably in right now. I saw the flicker of worry pass over the lieutenant’s face, but it was gone as soon as it came. He waved to the other six policemen that were now standing next to their cars about 10 meters away from us. They came over and only then did I see that they also had a police dog with them, a beautiful German shepherd. 

They asked me if I could remember where Tim was in the mine or if I had anything of his with me. I dug into my pockets and the only thing I could find was my phone. That was when I remembered that Tim also took pictures of all of the rooms and the things we saw in the mine. I showed the photos to the policemen standing around me and I could see concern, pain and horror painted on all of their faces. The policemen holding the German shepherd asked me if he could borrow the phone for a little while so the dog could try to get a smell off it and try to find Tim that way as well as following our smells to get to the correct rooms and take the right passages in the mine. I allowed him to take the phone, the dog sniffed it and five of the cops went into the mine that Ethan and I just came out of not so long ago. 

I turned back toward the policemen that were standing in front of me and saw that Ethan was still talking to Noah. They seemed to get along great, even though Ethan still seemed to be in a horrible condition. Lieutenant Stone started asking me questions again, about how long I was in the mine, how much I remember and if there was anyone else besides Eztli there. I told him as much as I could remember. About coming home from the skate park that evening, blacking out in front of our house and waking up in the cell where I was tied up. I told him about how Eztli came down into the cell every day and would beat me up, I told him how I escaped when I heard that Tim had also been kidnapped and how we tried to escape together, only for us to get caught again and for Tim to end up in the situation that he was in now. I told him about meeting Ethan, finding Charlotte’s diary and finally being able to get to freedom. 

The lieutenant wrote all of the important things down in his notebook, but he said that Tim, Ethan and I would still have to come to the station for further questions. While he was writing things down, he looked serious and like he would rather be anywhere else but here. I looked over at Ethan and saw that Noah and he were talking to each other and smiling occasionally as well. Noah seemed interested in every word that Ethan said, and I was glad for that, considering that Ethan didn’t have an easy life, he deserved someone to listen to him and be able to make him smile again.

I checked the wristwatch on the lieutenant’s hand and saw that it has already been about half an hour since the five other police officers went into the mine to find Tim, Eztli and Doctor Rachel Davis. As if on cue, one of the five policemen ran out of the mine with the German shepherd in tow. He came to a stop next to us and once he caught his breath he started talking. ‘We found the boy’ he said, ‘he was in the room they said he was going to be in. I don’t think that Eztli and the other woman figured out that Juliet and Ethan escaped yet, because Eztli seemed pretty surprised when he saw us. He tried to escape first and then when we had him cornered, he tried to shoot at us with his gun but luckily Romeo here managed to knock him down.’ With that, he patted the head of the German shepherd that was sitting next to him, his brown eyes shining with wisdom. ‘The boy is in a pretty bad state, however. Two of our guys stayed down with him while the three of went to look for the woman. But she is nowhere to be found. We even let Romeo explore the mine, but he couldn’t find her anywhere, we think she escaped. I came up here to tell you that we absolutely need the paramedics down there with us to help us transfer the boy.’ The paramedics quickly made sure that Ethan and I were at least mildly ok as soon as they arrived. But now three of them ran back into the mine with a stretcher in hand and the policeman and the dog guiding them. I could only hope that Tim was going to be ok, there was nothing more that I could do right now.

However as soon as I heard the news about the doctor, I felt immense hate towards her. How could she just kill all of those girls and hurt Tim so badly? I knew that some people would do almost anything for money, but hurt and kill other human beings? That crossed every line there was. The policemen told us that before us, Eztli had killed more than twenty girls, but nobody was ever able to find him, and if anyone was, they were killed by him. They also told us a little bit more about Charlotte. They said that she had a little sister an older brother and that her parents died in a car crash when she was 16. Since then her little sister, her brother and her lived mostly by themselves and tried to get by every day. Charlotte worked really hard in high school and was even able to get a full ride to the college that she was attending. They also told us that they were looking for her for so long, but just couldn’t find her. I couldn’t believe the story of Charlotte’s life. Besides the fact that it was sad and traumatic, it also reminded me of another family’s story. Ethan’s. It was so alike to Charlotte’s story and yet so different. It also clearly showed that people could go more ways after being victims in a tragedy. They could end up like Eztli, cold, dark, manipulative, distant and even murderous. Or they could end up as Charlotte and keep on going, being as positive as they could, even in the times of darkness and full on negativity. 

The lieutenant told us that in the end the case went cold and not long after that they got a new one, which was Ethan’s and they decided that since they all spent so long with Charlotte’s case, they decided that they needed to get another fresh pair of eyes on Ethan’s case and so Noah got assigned his case.   
I glanced towards the pair again and just as I turned to look at them, Ethan seemed to lose his consciousness and as soon as Noah saw what was going on, he reached out towards him and managed to catch him just in time before Ethan hit the ground. Noah kneeled on the ground and gently laid Ethan down in his lap and called over the paramedic that stayed behind just in case if anything like this were to happen. He quickly ran over to them along with Lieutenant Stone and me. He checked his pulse and then told us that we needed to carry Ethan to the ambulance to get some saline in his system seeing as he was dehydrated. Before lieutenant Stone or the paramedic could do anything, Noah had already picked Ethan up bridal style and was carrying him towards the ambulance. I risked a quick glance at both the paramedic and Stone and saw that while they both looked worried, the paramedic was smiling softly, but Stone however was staring harshly and even disgustedly at Noah and Ethan. I could see that the paramedic, whose nametag read James Mills, noticed the hard look in the lieutenant’s eyes as well and tried to distract him. ‘It’s amazing how good he is with people isn’t it? Noah, I mean. Considering how young he is, he sure does work hard and knows how to do his work well doesn’t he?’, Thomas said. ’Hm. I have to admit, I did have my doubts about him at the beginning, when he started working for us, however he has really proved himself so far. I just hope he doesn’t do anything stupid that would get him fired.’ Replied lieutenant Stone while still glaring at Noah as he gently put Ethan down in the ambulance and Thomas rushed over to them to get the saline in Ethan’s system.

I really didn’t like Stone. He may be a cop and help people, but I didn’t understand why he had to be so rude to people and why he couldn’t just accept everyone. Of course, I knew that acceptance was hard. I knew that sometimes you couldn’t really accept people, especially if you didn’t know a lot about them or if they were different from you. Moreover, there were so many ways to be different! People could treat you differently just because of what you liked to do in your free time, or because you listened to different music than they did. And while these were only the small things, it’s where it all starts. How are you going to accept anyone because they’re a different gender than you, have a different religious background, are a different race, come from a different country than you do or have a different sexual orientation if you can’t even accept your schoolmate who likes modern day pop music, while you prefer old time rock n’ roll? I knew we all had to start small because if we didn’t, we won’t move on, wouldn’t be able to really. 

I looked back at Noah who was holding Ethan up while Thomas was looking for the right place to sting Ethan with the needle that would deliver him the saline that he needed. He finally found it and gently stung the needle into his vein and then connected him to the bag that contained the saline solution, and we could see the liquid slowly dripping down the tube and into Ethan’s hand. Even though we all knew that nothing was really wrong with Ethan, that he was just dehydrated, we were still all worried about him. After all the shocks of today, it was pretty much impossible to not be worried about certain things. They told us that after they would bring Tim out of the mine, they would drive the three of us into the hospital to do some more check-ups on Ethan and I and to take Tim to the ER.  
While the saline was flowing into Ethan’s body, Thomas got everything ready for when the paramedics would bring Tim. He double checked all of the devices and machines they had in the ambulance and ready the devices they would need to keep Tim alive and to figure out his blood type, so that as soon as they arrived to the hospital, they would have his blood type ready and could perform needed operations and tests.

I kept looking from the entrance of the cave to Ethan and Noah, waiting for the paramedics to bring Tim back or for Ethan to regain his consciousness again. Speaking of, I could see Ethan’s eyelids fluttering open slowly and he looked around himself, probably not exactly knowing where he was for a second. Noah softly tapped his shoulder to make Ethan look at him. He did and smiled weakly and Noah worriedly returned the smile. ‘Hey. Do you remember what happened Ethan?’, he asked him. ‘I think… I remember talking to you and then I remember everything going black. I thought I was back in the mine again, Eztli was there, he was torturing me, beating me up with this baseball bat and it hurt so badly…’ I could see tears collecting in the corners of Ethan’s eyes as he spoke, and I almost cried myself.

Just then I could hear shouting coming from the entrance of the mine and we all turned to look at where the voices were coming from. I could see the cops first. More specifically, I could see the blue of their uniforms, as they came closer however, I saw the face of the man I hoped that I would never have to see ever again. There, coming towards us, guarded by the cops, was Eztli. One of the cops had a gun pressed against his back and another one was looking back at the entrance of the mine. I could see that Eztli’s hands were cuffed so he couldn’t escape and that even Romeo’s watchful eyes were on him.

The closer to us they got, the more nervous I felt. This was the man that held me, Tim and Ethan captured for so long, he tortured us, he starved us and I don’t think that any of us were ever truly going to get over the trauma and the nightmares that we all endured. Especially Ethan. Speaking of, I glanced behind me, where the saline was still dripping into his body and he still hasn’t regained consciousness completely. But as I looked into his eyes, I could see that he was afraid, terrified even. I could see Noah stand up and move in front of Ethan. While Noah’s face was sympathetic and soft when he was talking to Ethan, it got hard and full of hate the minute he laid his eyes on Eztli. I might have not known Noah for a long time, but for as long as I did, I’ve never seen him so mad and full of hate. He was always only understanding and smiling, never with that kind of facial expressions. I would expect that from lieutenant Stone, but not from him.

‘Well hello there little brother.’ I could not believe it! Eztli just got captured and his brother was finally free and instead of apologizing or something, the first words that he said to Ethan would be normal in, well, normal circumstances which these were not. And even so, he said those words so full of malice and hate, even I shuddered the minute he uttered them. And he wasn’t even talking to me. ‘So, I come out here and the last thing I would expect to see is you getting yourself a boyfriend the minute you came crawling out. Ethan, really? I would not think you were that easy. I thought that dad taught you better than that!’ ‘Don’t you dare mention dad! He was dead before I even started school!’ Ethan was still hooked up to the saline solution, but that didn’t stop him from talking back at Eztli.  
I could see the smug smirk on Eztli’s face, and I saw that he was about to tear him a new one, but before he could, the cops pulled him towards the police car and sat him in the back seat. I turned back towards Ethan to check on him and saw that luckily Noah and Thomas were already at his side. Thomas was checking his pulse and the saline and Noah was trying to calm him down a bit even though I could see that he was quite angry himself.

Just then we once again heard loud voices coming from the entry of the mine. We turned around and what I saw almost broke me. The cops and paramedics were carrying Tim on the stretcher and he was still hooked up to the machine keeping him alive. They were running towards us and Stone and Thomas ran towards them to help. Meanwhile Noah helped Ethan to get into a better sitting position so they could fit Tim in the ambulance easier as well. When they reached us, I could see the worried looks on their faces and their next words felt like an ice-cold shower.’ His state was bad before, but it’s only getting worse. We have to get him to the hospital, and we have to get him there now! It’s only a matter of time whether he’ll manage to survive or not.’


	10. Companions of nightmares

The ride to the hospital was straight up horrible. I felt as if we were driving for hours, even though in reality, it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. I drove to the hospital in the police car with Stone and Noah because Ethan and Tim went via the ambulance and there was only so much space in it. Besides, there were a few of the paramedics driving with them as well and they all had to sit somewhere too. The police car I was in was right behind the ambulance and Stone was driving as fast as he could and yet I still felt as if it were taking an eternity to get there.

As soon as we got to the hospital, they took Tim to the emergency room and then showed Ethan and me the way to the rooms that we would be in while the doctors did some check-ups on us. I didn’t know what was happening around me. Everyone was talking loudly, running towards or away from us, the doctors were asking us questions and I just felt like I was in a bubble that didn’t let any noise come through. When the bubble broke, I was sitting on the bed in a hospital room. I didn’t know or remember how I got there. I slowly looked around myself. The walls were painted a baby blue color and it had animals and rainbows drawn on them. I remembered that I was after all still a child and was therefore probably on the paediatric floor. The room had two beds, but the other one was unoccupied. Next to the second bed was a window that was overlooking a big park that stretched out under the hospital. In front of a window was wooden desk with two green plastic chairs with iron legs. I was only here once before and that was because I had pneumonia when I was around nine years old.

I didn’t feel like getting up from the bed I was sitting on and honestly, I wasn’t even sure I could if I tried. I was tired but I knew that if I tried to sleep, I would soon wake up screaming, with the memories of Eztli and the mine still haunting my mind. But more than anything, I was worried for Tim. I wanted to know if the doctors got him at least a little bit healed up or if he was doing better. He had to be doing better! I mean we were in the mine before where the conditions were everything but good. Noah said that they’ll tell me as soon as I’ll be able to go see him but in the meantime, the doctors still had to check me to see if everything was okay, if I wasn’t hurt too badly or dehydrated like Ethan. Speaking of, they put Ethan in a room across from mine and I heard that he was doing better than before, and he wasn’t dehydrated anymore either. 

My mind started to wander but before I could get too far with my thoughts the doors opened and in stepped a doctor and a nurse. The doctor took a chair from the desk and the nurse sat down next to me on the bed. They introduced themselves and then started the check-up. They asked me a few questions first, when was the last time I drank or ate anything, what did I eat and drink while kidnapped, was I tortured in the mine… Then I had to lift up my shirt and only then did I notice the huge bruises I had on my stomach and ribs. They must have formed when Eztli beat me up. They hurt a lot and the nurse put on some cream on it and then wrapped it up with elastic bandages so it wouldn’t hurt more than it already did. She then brought me a glass of water that I drank as fast as I could and then when she filled it up again she put a few pills that would help with the pain if it got too much. After that, they measured my heart rate and took my blood to test it in case if I came in contact with any viruses while in the mine. After they left my room Stone and Noah entered it and sat down in the chairs. 

‘How are you feeling?’ Noah asked me, looking worried. ‘I’ve been better. How are Ethan and Tim doing?’ I asked. I saw Noah opening his mouth to answer me, but before he could, Stone interrupted him and told me instead. ‘Ethan is fine for now. He’s in his room, the doctors unhooked him from the saline solution, so he’s getting better, not dehydrated anymore. As for Tim however…’ I looked over at Noah again who sighed and started to talk. ‘The doctors did all they could, they hooked him up to newer and better breathing machines, connected him to some saline solution and because he lost a lot of blood, they even transfused some donor blood to him. The problem is, neither the doctors, nor us, know for how long he was in those conditions for or what kind of operation tools were used on him. That is a problem, because Tim is currently in a coma and we don’t know when he is going to wake up. It could take a few days, weeks or even months. We simply can’t tell. I know you’ll probably never going to forget this Juliet, but you have to remember the fact that he was literally cut open and had one of his livers taken from him without any anesthetics or anything else that would even slightly dull his pain. He is now under constant observation and the doctors are checking up on him every 10-20 minutes to see if everything is going ok. The only good news is that his condition is now stable, and he is now longer in a life or death situation. I’m sorry Juliet, I really am, but right now all we can do is hope that he’ll wake up soon and be alright.’ He lightly squeezed my hand, but I didn’t even notice that.  
I could only hear the words he was saying. Tim was in a coma and we didn’t know when he was going to wake up. And when he will, is he going to remember everything that happened to him? Is he going to remember what we went through together? A part of me almost wished he wouldn’t. Yes, I would miss him terribly, but we could always get to know each other again. But those memories? The things that happened in the mine? They were nightmares. They were the reason for me waking up screaming every night, even when I was still in the mine. My memories were bad enough already, but I couldn’t even imagine what Tim’s memories of the mine were like. He was tortured, so much worse than I was, and then brutally cut open. Those would be the memories that he would have to carry with him for ever day of his life. The thing that wouldn’t let him sleep and that would haunt him every time he closed his eyes. I do realize that the past and the pain makes us stronger but sometimes, well, maybe sometimes we survive by forgetting. 

I didn’t even realize that lieutenant Stone left the room when Noah started talking before. He walked in, with his phone in his hand and looked at me. ‘We called your parents. The first time we did, when we arrived at the mine, nobody was at home to answer it, but now they were. They are going to be here in half an hour. Tim’s parents were on a vacation when he went missing, so nobody told them about it, because he was home alone. His parents are going to be back in a day or two.’ He sat back down in the chair. ‘Some other officers are going to come here because they want to question you and mister Castro again.’ ‘Mister Castro? You mean Ethan?’ I asked him. ‘Yes, Ethan, he is almost 18 years old after all, might as well refer to him as an adult.’ He answered and shot a quick glare at Noah that he didn’t see but I definitely did. Only then the words truly sunk in. ‘I would have to tell the whole story again?’ I glanced at Noah. ‘I’m really sorry Juliet, I know this must be really hard for you, if you need some time to relax, we can do this another day, I understand that it all must still be so fresh and-‘ ‘Sergeant Cohen, need I remind you, who is in charge here? Not only me, but also the DA. And just like you have said, the memories are still fresh. If she goes to sleep, she is going to forget things and she is going to mix her dreams with reality and not know what is real anymore. I don’t think we can afford that, now can we?’ Noah hung his head and when he slightly lifted it up, he gasped once he saw my face. I looked past him to the bedside mirror and saw that my face had gone completely white, my eyes were wide with horror and my lips were just a thin red line. I snaked my arms around myself and started rocking back and forth on the bed. I felt as if though I was going to be sick, but at the same time, I felt like all the air was being sucked out of my lungs and I began gasping. I felt trapped and I couldn’t get any air. I felt like I was going to pass out every time I took a breath. I was back in the mine, in the cell, bound to the wall, Eztli was beating me up again and I felt completely broken. I wanted to make the pain stop, yet I didn’t know how. I started grasping at the sheets of my beds, to feel something, anything. Then I felt Noah’s arms around my shoulders, and he was whispering into my ear ‘Hey, breathe with me Juliet, ok? Breathe with me. We’re going to count to ten and we’re going to breathe very slowly ok? Can you do that for me Juliet?’ than he started counting to ten and taking a deep breath with every number. By five, I was still shaking slightly, but it was getting better. From then on, I silently counted with him and took deep breaths, when he did. When we were done, I still hung on to him for a few seconds, then let go, and slowly sat back on the bed the way I was sitting before. I looked at Noah, who was still looking at me with worried eyes ‘What happened?’ I asked, ‘you had an anxiety attack. Probably triggered by thinking you would have to relive your memories of the mine. Are you feeling a little better now?’ ‘Yeah, I’m ok. But, if my attack was that bad, I felt like I was back in the mine, Eztli was there… I mean, it was terrible, but Tim, he had it even worse. Not to even mention Ethan, he was in that mine for a year.’ I looked at Noah again who blushed at the mention of Ethan’s name but nodded, nevertheless. ‘Yes, Juliet you’re right. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I mean, Ethan had a similar attack as you did before, just longer. I really don’t know. I know there are therapies and even medicine for these kinds of things, so I do believe it’s all going to work out in the end, we just don’t know how far the end is from this moment. Look, I’m going to go and talk to the lieutenant again and try to talk him into moving this conversation with the other officers and the DA to some other time ok? He’s out in the hall right now, talking to the doctors. But in the meantime, do you want to go get something to eat? Or go see Tim or Ethan? You think that would help? Your parents are going to be here in about 20 minutes anyways, but until then, you can’t just sit on the bed, unless you want to maybe take a nap or something.’ 

But I knew that if I tried to take a nap, I would only find myself in the mine again and wake up screaming. ‘I want to go see Tim for a bit and then Ethan if I can. I’m going to eat at home anyways.’ Even though I felt really hungry right now, I knew that anything I would try to eat, I would throw up again, so it would be of no use anyways. I looked up at Noah who stood up already and nodded with a small smile. I tried to smile back weakly, and slowly got up from my bed. My stomach and ribs still ached, but not as much as they did before. We slowly walked out of the room and towards the elevators. Ethan and I were currently put on a different floor than Tim was so if we wanted to get there, we had to use the elevator, since Tim was on the first floor, where the operation rooms and the people under constant care were, and we were on the eight floor and we really didn’t feel like walking that far. We walked into the elevator and Noah pushed the big iron button with a flashing number one in the middle, and we could feel the elevator start to descend. We arrived at the first floor and with a ding, the elevator doors opened. I stepped out with Noah in tow and hugged my jacket tighter around my body, even though it was May, and the hospital was not that cold. I felt chills go up and down my body the closer we got to Tim’s room. I couldn’t imagine seeing him lying in bed, when the last time I saw him, he still had blood dripping off him. We walked towards the information desk where Noah showed the nurse his badge and she directed us towards Tim’s room. When we got there, I stopped in front of the door for a second and looked at Noah. ‘Do you want me to go in with you, or wait out here?’ ‘I’ll go in by myself, I shouldn’t be in there for long, and my parents are going to be here soon anyways.’ Noah nodded and walked to the opposite side of the room where some chairs were and sat down. I slowly opened the door and walked in.

I don’t know what I was expecting, to be honest. Tim was lying in bed, covered with tubes and wires, like you see in the movies, but you never imagine it happening to you or someone you know. He had a bandage around his head and arms, and I knew that his stomach had to be covered with them as well. Beside the bed there were a few beeping machines, and a few that were not beeping. There was a machine that was measuring his heart rate and pressure, there was a machine that was feeding him saline solution and one that was connected to his arm that had blood flowing down its tubes. The whole scene looked like a scene from a movie, not something you would really see. I sat on a chair next to Tim’s bed and took his hand in mine. At first, I didn’t really know what to say. I mean what are you supposed to say in a situation like this? Hi, how are you? It just didn’t feel right in some way. But I had nothing else to start with. ‘Hi Tim, it’s me, Juliet. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I read somewhere one time, that people in a come can hear other people talking to them and might even wake up sooner. So… I don’t know what to say Tim, I really don’t. I wish I did, but I don’t. I wish I had some heartfelt speech like people in movies and books always have, but I don’t have one, so instead I’m going to talk to you about…. recent events. How about that? So, it’s currently pretty humid outside, maybe it’s going to rain later? I’m kidding. Look Tim, I miss you, I really do. I wish you were here with me right now, helping me get through this, but you can’t. I’m also very sorry for dragging you into this whole mess in the first place. If we hadn’t become friends that day in the skate park, you wouldn’t go looking for me when I disappeared, you wouldn’t get kidnapped and you wouldn’t get tortured by Eztli. I know that if you were here you would say that you would find some other messes to get into and that it isn’t my fault that all of this happened, but you know what I’m like. Still, I wish you were here. I don’t know if you know or not, but they still haven’t caught that doctor that did this to you. She escaped. They did manage to catch Eztli though. And I know you don’t know this, but Eztli has this brother, Ethan, that I met in the mine. He’s really nice, not like Eztli at all, you know? But that’s all I can think of. A lot more happened, but I’m going to tell you about that, when you wake up. Because you are going to wake up soon, ok Tim? Please, you have to wake up! Please, we all miss you, please come back to us. And no, I’m not going to say come back to me, because if you heard that, you would say that that’s really cheesy and since you’re lactose intolerant, you would die because of all this cheese laying around here. See Tim? We need you. So, you can make us all laugh again. Please, wake up soon Tim, I miss you.’ With that, I leaned down and softly kissed his hand, the dry skin rasped against my cracked lips, before standing up and silently leaving the room. As I closed the door, I saw Noah get up from his chair. He looked at me as if to check if I was all right and once I nodded he smiled slightly, and we went back to the elevator. 

‘You know, a musician I listen to, Conor Oberst said something once, that I think would fit really nicely into this situation.’ Noah said, once we began nearing the information desk on our way back to the elevator. ‘Yeah, really? What?’ ‘Well he said, and I quote: ‘In a coma, you don’t dream, you just hope that someone sits with you.’ I think that that’s what Tim needs right now. He needs someone to sit with him.’ I nodded thoughtfully. ‘I just hope that you really can’t dream in a coma, otherwise Tim must be in a nightmare world right now.’ I answered. We were nearing the elevators when a woman walked past us. I looked at her face and saw recognition flash in her eyes along with something between worry and fear. She looked familiar to me from somewhere, but I just couldn’t really put my finger on it… I closed my eyes and shook my head to get rid of the thought when I suddenly got a flashback. I saw a woman, a slim woman with black hair and angry blue eyes, she was wearing a green shirt with a black skull, camo pants and black leather jacket. The woman’s arms and parts of neck were covered with tattoos of fire breathing dragons and white skulls with fiery red eyes. I opened my eyes and looked around me again, but the woman was gone. Noah looked at me questionably, but I shook my head. ‘I must have imagined it.’ I said, ‘But for a moment there, I thought I saw… never mind, it doesn’t matter.’ ‘No, Juliet who did you see?’ ‘I told you I’m not sure if I really saw her, but I thought I saw…’

‘Who?’

‘Doctor Rachel Davis.


	11. Lost without clues

As soon as I uttered those words, I could see the worry as well as disbelief mirroring in Noah’s eyes. But then again, even I almost didn’t believe it and I didn’t want to really. And honestly, why would anyone believe that? She was a criminal, a murderer, and what’s more important, she was wanted. She knew exactly what she did to Tim and those other girls, so it would be logical that Tim would be taken to a hospital along with Ethan and me. Truth be told, Noah and I were currently walking down a different floor than the one were originally put in, so she probably didn’t really expect to see us there, but nevertheless, this was almost like a criminal coming back to their scene of crime; it was straight-up crazy and suicidal.

I looked back at Noah, who started ushering me back to the elevators and then pressed number 8 again and the elevator began ascending, the numbers on its wall changing, until we finally got back to our floor and the iron doors opened and then then closed behind us. ‘Ok, so if what you’re saying is true, which, to be frank, I still don’t entirely believe. I’m not saying that I don’t believe you at all or that you’re making it up, all I’m saying is that it sounds crazy. You’ve got to admit that!’ I nodded, ‘I know Noah, believe me, I don’t even think it’s true.’ ‘Exactly! Anyways, as I was saying, if it is true and you did see Doctor Rachel Davis in the mine, there’s at least one person besides Tim who saw her, and since we can’t exactly count on Eztli to tell us anything…’ ‘So, who exactly do you think saw the doctor in the mine besides me and Tim?’ He rubbed the back of his neck and cast his eyes downwards. ‘Well, Ethan of course. I mean, maybe he didn’t see her for sure, but there’s still a chance considering he was in the mine for more than a month. I’ve got to check up on him anyways, so we’ll kill two birds with one stone. I mean, I’ve told him to rest for a bit, especially after the panic attack he had, but knowing him, he probably didn’t lay down for a second’. Noah rolled his eyes as if though he annoyed slightly by Ethan, but I could still see a smile breaking out on his face. I chuckled silently as Noah looked at me curiously with his cheecks a light red, but I just shook my head, and we spent the rest of our walk to Ethan’s room in silence.

Once we came to the right room, Noah quietly opened the door to see if Ethan was resting, but as soon I saw the annoyed yet somehow fond look on his face, I knew that Ethan was wide awake. I followed him and stepped into Ethan’s room, which was quite similar to mine. Noah was sitting on Ethan’s bed looking at him disapprovingly. The other was looking at Noah with guilt in his eyes, but I could see that he was trying to hide a smile. Noah was even trying to lay Ethan down on the bed, so that he would be resting at least a little bit while we told him the news, but Ethan just swatted his hands away from him with a smile and a slight blush on his cheecks. He then sat next to Noah at the foot of his bed and looked up at me with questioning gaze.

I realized that if we weren’t kidnapped by Eztli, I probably wouldn’t have met Ethan and he probably wouldn’t meet Noah. As I looked at Ethan and Noah sitting on the bed, both a little bit tired, but with smiles on their faces, I couldn’t help but imagine what our life’s would be like if we didn’t go through what we did and if we already knew each other. Tim would be ok, and he and I would probably be going to the skatepark every day, trying out new tricks and then going out for ice cream afterwards. Considering Tim’s dad is a cop, I was also guessing that Tim would get along pretty well with Noah too. In general, I think that Noah, Ethan and Tim would be great friends. When we’d be free on the weekends, we could all go swimming to that river that we went to with our class. Especially Noah and Ethan wouldn’t have to face so much hate and horror from Eztli and Stone, they really didn’t deserve that. But then reality crashed down on me and in that moment, I realized three very important things. The first one was that right now, we had to deal with the situation that we were currently faced with, aka Doctor Rachel Davis. Secondly, if I were to spend too much time dreaming and imagining things, I would become depressed as soon as I came back to the real world and find it so different from what I imagined and dreamed of, so much worse and sadder. And the third thing? I realized that we could still have that almost life I imagined. Yes, Tim, Ethan and I would still have endless nightmares and traumas of the mine, but we could find peace in each other. Noah and Ethan would still endure hate from other people for being… well, whatever they were right now. I guess more than friends? I smiled to myself. But no matter what, we’d stand by each other’s sides and that’s what’s truly important. Because yes, most of the times tragedy brings so much sadness and anger and things you think you will never be able to recover from. But sometimes, it can create the most beautiful things and bring together people that were destined to meet. And I may not believe in destiny or fate entirely, but one thing is definitely true. Destiny may decide who you meet in life, but your heart’s the one that decides whether they stay in your life or not. But first, Tim would have to wake up, I didn’t even realize how much I would miss him.

I sat down on a chair opposite of Ethan’s bed and looked at the pair in front of me. Ethan looked considerably better than he did before, and I was glad to see that. I then looked at Noah and he nodded and started speaking. ‘So, Ethan, Juliet and I went to the first floor before and she thinks she saw Doctor Rachel Davis. Now the problem is, neither of us are completely sure if it was really her, because she saw her for such a small amount of time. But since you were both held captive in the same place, I just thought we could ask you if you ever saw her or would be able to recognize her if I were to show you a photo of her. Don’t worry, just the one question, I promise I’m not going to let you have another attack and even if you do, I’ll be right here to help you through it, I promise you that Ethan.’ I looked at Ethan and saw that his face was as white as wall. He nodded though ‘Yeah, I uh, I…’ his voice cracked slightly, and he cleared his throat to cover it up. Noah rubbed his back and urged him to continue. ‘I uhm, I can try. I saw a woman in there with Aar-Eztli, a lot, I just didn’t know her name. She usually wore dark clothes however, so I just thought that she was helping Eztli kidnap other people or something along those lines anyways. But if you show me a picture of her, I could probably recognize her.’ ‘Ok.’ Noah said. He rubbed Ethan’s arm and looked at him in worry. ‘Are you ok? I’m just gonna step outside for a moment alright, so I can call Stone and get a photo of Doctor Davis.’ He stood up and looked down at the two of us. ‘Yeah, Noah don’t worry about it, I’m gonna be fine with Juliet. You go on and do your work, we’ll be right here when you come back.’ Ethan answered with a slight smile, which Noah returned and then left the room. When the door closed behind him, I turned to Ethan. ‘So, really, how are you? I mean, I know you’re better, you seem like it too and I know you’re probably really annoyed by people asking you this, I mean I know I am. I know that most people mean well, but when the hundredth person asks me how I’m doing even right after I tell them I’m ok, I sometimes just feel like saying, “hey, you know, feel free to shut the hell up, I insist.” ‘You know what I mean?’ Ethan looked up and smiled a bit bigger and shook his head, but I could feel he was trying not to laugh by the way his shoulders were shaking. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean Jules, but yeah I’m fine. I mean yeah, it may not be every day you get kidnapped by your psychotic brother and his co-worker, but… I don’t know, everything’s just so crazy right now to be honest. I mean a bit over a month ago, I had a somehow normal life, a good foster family and everything and now I’m just…’ he shook his head again and looked at the ground. ‘I don’t know what to do Juliet, I really don’t.’ he lifted his head again and I could see tears in his eyes, ‘I mean, Aaron James is my brother, but at the same time he’s also Eztli, this psychotic maniac that kidnapped me, you, Tim and countless other girls and sold their organs and killed them…’ he buried his head in his hands and in that moment the door opened again and Noah and Stone walked through them. Noah was carrying a photo, which I assumed had Doctor Davis on it while Stone was looking at something on his phone. When Stone saw what was going on, he mumbled something along the lines of ‘I’ll wait outside’ and then exited the room.

Noah however quietly but quickly put the photo down on the nightstand and sat down next to Ethan and then wrapped his hands around his shaking frame. Ethan turned towards him, buried his head in the crook of Noah’s neck, wrapped his arms around his neck, and cried quietly. I could see that he was still shaking slightly, but he was slowly stopping. Noah rubbed his back with one hand and ran his other hand through his hair while whispering to Ethan. ‘Hey, I’m here. Ethan, I’m here for you alright, everything’s going to be ok, just hold on.’ After a while, Ethan stopped crying but kept his head buried in the crook of Noah’s neck for a few more seconds before lifting it and looking up at Noah. ‘See? Everything’s going to be okay, don’t you worry about it.’ He then wiped Ethan’s tears away with his thumb and gave him a sideways hug before releasing him. They then turned towards me again. ‘Hey, I uh, I’m sorry about that Jules, I don’t know what happened I just freaked out a bit a guess’ Ethan said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re all human after all’. He nodded and then looked towards the photo that was facing down on the nightstand next to his bed. ‘So uh, is that the photo?’ ‘Yeah, hold up for a second you two, I have to call Stone so that he can see it too. Juliet, why don’t you sit next to Ethan for a sec, so you’ll both be able to look at it at the same time.’ I nodded and then sat down on the bed next to Ethan while Noah went to get Stone. They came back and Noah looked at us again. ‘You two sure you’re ready for this?’ Ethan and I looked at each other and then nodded. ‘Alright then, here you go.’ He handed us the photo. On it, there were eight people in white hospital personnel gowns, smiling at the camera. In the middle stood a woman with her hair in a tight ponytail. She held a big paper check in her hands that said ’50 000 dollars to the paediatric floor of the Red Haefair hospital’. Because everyone was dressed so nicely and smiling, I almost didn’t recognize her. But then I saw her. She was the woman holding the paper check! Right in the middle of them, was Doctor Rachel Davis. And when I heard Ethan gasp next to me, I knew he saw her too. We looked at each other and nodded. We gave the photo back to Noah and Ethan spoke up. ‘That’s her. The one in the middle holding the check, that’s Doctor Rachel Davis.’ ‘Alright. I’ll ask the hospital staff about her, she’s probably still here’ with that Stone left the room. I looked at the clock on the wall and saw that my parents were going to come and get me in less than 10 minutes. I sighed and looked down.

I couldn’t just leave now! I mean, Ethan still wasn’t 100% ok, but he had Noah to keep him safe. Tim however… his parents aren’t going to be here anytime soon; it didn’t feel right to just leave him here all alone. Because yes, he may be in a coma right now, but I think that he can still hear people around him and if there’s no one there with him, that’s so lonely. And being lonely is not the same as being alone, not really. Being lonely is the feeling that no one cares, and I would never want to make anyone feel that way. Because that’s the way I used to feel some time ago, at my old school. And those feelings, those memories I still carry with me to this very day, even though no matter how much I want to forget them I just can’t, because they always come bubbling back up to the surface. Those feelings sucked. Of course, I missed my parents and my home and my friends and my school, but Tim, Noah and Ethan, they were friends I met a different way, and, in a way, I felt closer to them. I just really didn’t know what to do right know. I knew what I wanted, of course I did. I wanted the police to catch Doctor Davis and to put her and Eztli in prison, but more than that, I wanted Tim to wake up. But if I knew one thing, I knew that nothing is ever that easy, not really. There’s always so many complications along the way, so many things that can go wrong so easily.

I was disrupted from my dreams by a door opening and I looked up. Standing at the open door was Stone, who had a worried look on his face. He glanced at Ethan and I and then his eyes stopped at Noah. ‘We have a problem. I asked the hospital staff if I could talk to Doctor Rachel Davis, but it seemed as if though she already left work even though she was supposed to work for three more hours today. I got a number of her landlord, but when I called him to ask whether she was home already or what time he saw her last the things got complicated.’ Noah looked up at Stone in confusion. ‘Complicated? Meaning what exactly? That she wasn’t home yet? She would need some time to get from the hospital to her home.’ Stone shook his head. ‘No that’s not what I meant. And the flat that she lives in is five minutes’ drive away from here and she left about fifteen minutes ago. No, what I meant was, the landlord said that he never heard of anyone named Rachel Davis. When I described her to him, he told me that this woman, who introduced herself to him as Rachel Davis, rented one of his apartments four years ago, at which time she started working as a surgeon in this hospital. Now call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Now as for why he didn’t remember her when I first asked him about her. Apparently, ever since the day she rented the apartment she hasn’t spent a day there. The only times he ever sees her is when she comes to get her mail and she always mails him the rent, so it’s obvious he doesn’t see her that often or remembers him that well.’ Ethan shook his head and asked the question we have all been wondering. ‘But why would she do that? Rent an apartment and never spend a single day there? More importantly, what does all this mean?’ Stone answered him while looking at the ground. ‘She did that to keep a cover, a fake address, probably a fake name too. But most importantly it means…’ 

Stone looked up and sighed. ‘It means, mister Castro that we have no idea where or who Doctor Rachel is. We lost her again and don’t know where to look.’


	12. Old friends come back

Once we heard those words, a deathly silence settled across the room. The only sound we could hear was the hustling and moving of people outside the room. We all looked at each other without saying a word, but we were all thinking the same thing. We had been so close to catching her, she was right here in front of us this entire time, and yet… I get why she ran; I mean she was a criminal and all that, but still, it would’ve felt so good to catch her. But at the same time, something else worried me. Why was she on the same floor as Tim? I understand that she worked there, but considering the fact that she knew that Eztli was caught, I was sure she did, why come to work? Why not just call in sick and stay at home, she’d be much safer that way. But she knew exactly what kind of injuries she caused Tim; she was a doctor after all. The thing she didn’t know however, was how long it would take Tim to wake up, and in what state he would be when and if he would. But when he would and if his memory would be intact, he would surely remember everything that happened in the mine, including seeing her there. And I’m guessing it wouldn’t take him too long to place two and two together and figure out that Doctor Rachel Davies does indeed work at this hospital.

So, what could she do to make sure he would never come to this realization? My guess? Slow down his recovery. The only thing I was afraid of was how much exactly she would slow down his recovery for. I remembered all of the machines he was hooked up to, all of the liquids flowing into his body. I knew there were cameras all across the hospital of course, and a guard that was always on duty, watching out for any weird things happening around the halls of the Red Haefair hospital. But then again what’s weird or mysterious about the head Doctor heading into a room with a new arrival? Absolutely nothing, which is what worried me. She could just as easily go into Tim’s room, take a syringe filled with air and inject it into Tim’s body. That way, Tim would look as if he died of embolism or something alike, but the real story would be so far from that. And not only that. How many more people has she killed and then managed to get away with it? 

I looked at Stone and Noah again, looking for any traces of answers on their faces. But sadly, I could see that they were just lost as lost as I was. Then Noah and Ethan suddenly looked up at the same time as if though they thought of something. Stone seemed to notice it as well and looked at them. ‘What, you thought of something? Please say you did, because quite frankly, I have absolutely no idea what to do right now.’ Noah and Ethan nodded, and Noah spoke. ‘Yeah I do have an idea, but I don’t think it’s going to be all that useful, so Ethan, what was your idea? Maybe mine will make more sense after we hear yours.’ I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. These two really did go together in all of the best ways possible. Ethan shook his head slightly and I could see that he was worried and maybe a bit scared as well. ‘Yeah um, I mean I doubt it’s gonna work but we can try right? So, I had the idea that the only person alive that we could ask where Doctor Rachel Davis or whoever she is, lives, is Eztli. I know what you’re going to say ok? I know that it’s a crazy idea and that Eztli probably wouldn’t even tell us, I mean why would he; he’s facing a lifetime in prison after all. But maybe, just maybe, once he finds out that Doctor Davis left him, he’s going to want revenge. And maybe he doesn’t know where she lives exactly, considering that they’re more business partners or whatever then friends, but he must at least know something right? After all, he’s been doing this for quite some time, he had to know some things about her. Does this help your idea at all Noah?’

We all looked at Noah who was looking at Ethan. I didn’t say it aloud, but while the idea may be good, it was also very very dangerous. Yeah, Eztli was in custody until his trial, but still. That didn’t mean he didn’t have friends outside, or maybe even inside the police force. There were many dangers, but we had to do this. We had no other choice really. We couldn’t just let Doctor Rachel Davis continue what Eztli has started. And yeah, there were many people around the world doing the same thing as Eztli and Doctor Davis, but that didn’t mean that our work was for nothing. We had to do absolutely everything in our power to stop Eztli and Doctor Davis. While it may seem like just stopping two people, like a drop in an ocean, it was far from it. If we managed to stop these two, we could save so many lives, and not just the lives of the people that Eztli kidnapped and Doctor Davis killed, the lives of their families as well. Because how beaten down must the parents of those children, their brothers, sisters and friends feel, when they don’t have any idea what happened to them. When they have to go to a funeral for them, but they know that they are just lowering an empty casket into the ground, not knowing what really happened to them. The number of victims rises, because we can’t just count the kidnapped, tortured or dead people, we have to count their families too. So that way, so many people could be saved, if we could just stop this whole thing once and for all. I looked at the clock on the ceiling and realized that my parents were going to be here soon, which was not good, not good at all.  
I looked at Noah again, not knowing that I was looking at the ground thinking. I do that a lot. Just lose myself in my thoughts and fly away somewhere. I think I’ve been doing it my whole life, in fact… And I’m doing it again. Ok, back on track. 

Stone urged Noah to speak and he did so. ‘So, first of all, I was right, these two ideas, do go quite well together. Because my idea wouldn’t be useful if we didn’t question Eztli first and Ethan’s idea wouldn’t be useful if we didn’t have mine, because just questioning Eztli without any plans of what we would do next would just be putting ourselves into unnecessary danger. Basically, my idea was this. There was a friend I had back at the police academy, but we still keep in touch. I was training to be what I am now, a sergeant, but she decided to become a bounty hunter afterwards. Said she liked the thrill of the chase and the adventures that came with it. Her name is Rose Taylor. Not exactly what you expect a bounty hunter to be named, but that gives her the element of surprise, even though she usually uses fake names when she’s undercover anyways. She caught quite a few criminals we couldn’t even find, but the police usually only call her when they really have no idea where the suspect could be, they don’t really, shall we say, approve of her methods.’ Noah smirked slightly towards the end and then looked up at Stone again. ‘So, what do you think? Should I give her a call?’ Noah waved his phone in the air. Stone looked at him questionably. ‘Wait a second Cohen. Rose Taylor? I think I’ve heard of her. I’ve never actually worked with her before, but some of the other officers told me about her. She did sound pretty effective, though I do believe the words “doesn’t play well with others” did come up in a few conversations.’ Noah nodded and smiled slightly. ‘Yeah I guess that is one way to describe her. She is quite impulsive sometimes and often acts according to the “shoot first, ask questions later policy”. But at the end of the day she means well and always manages to catch the bad guy. Or girl. So, what do you think?’

I looked at officer Stone again and he seemed to be weighing options. I could see that he really wanted to catch Doctor Davis, but at the same time, he didn’t want to trust a rookie, especially one that Noah knew. I can kind of understand the fact that he didn’t like Noah, even though not really, but to judge someone before you even met them just based on what you heard and because they were connected to someone you didn’t like for some reason; now that was just plain stupid. I crossed my arms and could feel pain surge through me at the action. I remembered the bruises hidden under my shirt and bandages. They still hurt. They still held the memories of the mine, Eztli and the beatings. I shook my head to forget about the nightmares we endured and looked at Stone again. He looked as if though he had come to a decision. At last, he nodded. ‘Alright then. Call her. We’ll see how it goes.’ Noah picked up his phone and left the room. I looked at the clock again and saw that I only had a few minutes left until my parents came and drove me home. I knew they didn’t really need me here, but I couldn’t just leave. It wasn’t over yet. I sighed and then looked up again when the door opened and Noah walked in, grinning slightly.

‘Okay, good news. Rose is free and will be here in about half an hour. Oh, and Juliet?’ I looked at him. ‘your parents also called and said that there’s a traffic jam on the road, so they’ll probably get here about the same time as Rose will. Though considering the fact that it’s… Well Rose, she’ll probably get here sooner than she said she will. Element of surprise and all that.’ He said, smiling still. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see Ethan nodding, his lips in a thin line. ‘Ok, he said, ‘you wait here for this Rose of yours and I’ll go for walk. It has been quite some time since I’ve done that. I could see Noah looking at Ethan in confusion as he walked past him and out the door without as much as a look thrown his way. I stood up as well. ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll go with him and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.’ I said and exited the room while smirking at the still confused Noah. I closed the door behind me and walked towards where I could see Ethan sitting on one of the hospital chairs. I sat down next to him and saw that he was avoiding my eyes by looking at the ground.

I took a deep breath and looked at him grinning. ‘So… Jealous much?’ I smirked as Ethan’s eyes shot up and his cheeks colored a faint red. ‘What?’ he almost squeaked out. I grinned at him. ‘Well I mean you seemed pretty pissed when Noah was talking just now. And unless you were thinking about school or the government, I’d say it had something to do with this Rose Taylor and how close her and Noah sound.’ Ethan started to say something back but then stopped and took a deep breath. ‘Look, I uh, it’s not that I’m jealous,’ he said, ‘Mhm, sure.’ I interrupted him. He glared at me. ‘I’m not, really! It’s just that, the way he described her, impulsive, shoot first, ask questions later… It all reminded me of the way I usually am. And if that’s his type, then great, but considering his type seems to be a girl, well… I guess I better not get my hopes up, just for them to get crashed down again. I’ve been through this so many times, so I obviously know what it’s like. I mean I’ve basically been living on the streets for some part of my life and I’ve changed so many schools and met so many different people, so obviously, things happened. Noah, he’s not exactly the first guy I’ve met like that, if you know what I mean. There have been other guys and girls, but most guys just wanted to either experiment, to see what it’s like I guess, and others just wanted sex. So whether I got emotionally attached to any of them, it didn’t matter, because either they decided that I was too young, too poor, that they liked girls better after all or I had to leave to go to a different school because the system was always moving me around the country. So, when I met Noah, at first I thought, sure. I thought, maybe this could last a bit longer if there would be anything. But I knew not to get attached, because something like this would’ve happened. Look Jules, I’m not exactly an idiot you know? I know there’s no such thing as a perfect, fairy-tale like happy ending. And I know that I haven’t exactly had the best of luck in my life and I’m certainly not expecting for it to start now, but sometimes I wonder. If maybe I could just get a happy week, month, year. I know better than to hope for anything more than a year, considering my record….’ He sighed again and turned his head towards me and looked me in the eyes. 

I looked back and shook my head slightly. What all he had to go through and yet, I understood what he meant. I got that he knows better than to hope for too much, I’ve been let down way too many times to think like that too. And I really didn’t want to give him false hope, but I had to say something. ‘Look Ethan, I get what you mean, really, believe me, I do, but I do think you got one part wrong.’ He looked up, ‘Yeah? And what might that be, Jules?’ I smiled at the nickname and continued, ‘The Noah part. I don’t think he likes Rose. Yeah, he talks about her a lot, but I don’t think he likes her like that.’ Ethan just scoffed. ‘I’m serious, I’ve seen and heard people talk about people that they like or have a crush on. You for example. The point is, that is not the way that Noah was talking about Rose, at all. They sound more like best friends or even siblings, but definitely not like two people who are together. Trust me on this. You may call it fake hope or anything you like, but I have a pretty good feeling about this.’ He shook his head again, but I saw that he felt a bit better. ‘C’mon,’ I said, ‘we better get back inside. It’s been 15 minutes already, so Rose is probably going to come soon and my parents too.’ ‘Are you going to go home?’ ‘Probably. Believe me, I really don’t want to, I would much rather stay here with you and see how it will all play out, but my parents…’ ‘Yeah, I get it.’ I nudged him, ‘I better get you back inside that room before Noah starts freaking out and Stone will have to handcuff him to the bed to keep him from looking for you.’ Ethan cracked a grin and together we went back to his room. I gave him my home number and made him swear to call me when anything new would happen.

The minute we walked through the door Noah’s head shot up and his eyes locked with Ethan’s. They seemed to have a silent conversation with just their eyes before Ethan rolled his eyes and sat down on the bed again. He looked over at me and I smirked at him and I almost laughed at the way his face turned crimson. Just then someone knocked on the door and before anyone could stand up to open it, the person on the other side opened it themselves. In stepped a girl who I could only assume was Rose Taylor. She was not what a person would expect when hearing the name Rose Taylor. They would expect a girl with light skin, blonde hair, short and fragile, but the girl standing in front of us was anything but. She had long, straight dark hair that fell down her back in cascading waves. The hair reached her mid back and they weren’t exactly neatly brushed. The next thing about her that was just straight up striking, were her eyes. They were a startling amber color, but it didn’t feel right to just describe them as amber. They were a light brown melting into a slight orange that got blown up into an almost fluorescent yellow. She had a slight golden eyeliner around her eyes and some black mascara that really made her eyes pop. She had a slightly round face, but not chubby. Her lips were a dark red, but not over exaggeratingly so. She was slim, but you could see the muscles under her clothes. She was wearing black ripped jeans that had some of the holes filled up with a black and white plaid pattern. A black Jack Daniels top and a black Jack Daniels leather jacket covered the upper part of her body. She was also wearing black laced up Warlock moto boots and was carrying and army duffle bag. Every time she moved her hand you could hear iron things inside of the bag rattle. My guess was knives. 

She put her duffel down on the bed and looked at us. Her eyes flew over Stone and Ethan and lingered on me a second longer than necessary. I blushed and looked down and I could see her smirk. Her eyes then stopped on Noah and she smiled wide. ‘Noey!’ he smiled and opened up his arms. She walked over to him and hugged him. After he let her go, she punched him in the arm. ‘Hey! What was that for?’ he asked. ‘That,’ she answered with a smirk on her face, ‘was for last time.’ ‘Ok fair enough. But still…’ she interrupted him. ‘But I’m still glad to be your friend so fuck you.’ She turned around and opened up her duffel bag and I could see that I was right. It was indeed filled with knives and other weapons. She had every knife imaginable in there. From tiny pocketknives, to 6-inch double-edged bowie knives to full blown machetes wrapped in brown leather. She also had a few guns like a Beretta M9, a Springfield Range Officer and a Glock 34. I have an unhealthy obsession with guns and knives. What? Everyone has a hobby. Rose pulled out the 6-inch bowie knife and looked up with an expression between a smirk and smile on her face. Her eyes were glinting dangerously, but this time, it wasn’t like Eztli’s kind of dangerous. This was a fun kind of danger.

‘So,’ she looked at us, ‘who are we hunting?’


	13. The meeting of tomorrow

We were all gathered around in Ethan’s room. Noah and Ethan were sitting on Ethan’s bed next to each other, I was sitting on a chair opposite of Ethan’s bed, Stone was standing next to the door and Rose was standing next to me twirling her knife between her fingers and looking at Noah while waiting for him to explain. He looked at Ethan and me and asked us if we wanted to tell our story or if we would prefer it if we did. Ethan and I immediately agreed that we wouldn’t want to have to relieve the whole thing all over again and so Noah started talking. He began with the day Ethan was kidnapped and told Rose a bit about Ethan and Eztli’s life’s as well. He continued with the story of Ethan being kept prisoner in the mine for so long, about being beaten up and tortured by Eztli. At this point I could see that Ethan had begun to shake a bit and lost a bit of color as well. I think that Noah noticed it as well because he started gently running his hand up and down Ethan’s arm until he calmed down a bit. Ethan didn’t even stop telling the story, he was still looking at Rose, but at the same time he was calming Ethan down. I think Rose noticed it as well by the way she raised her eyebrow and smirked at Ethan. He seemed to realize what he was doing and blushed slightly looking away from Rose and stopped running his hand up and down Ethan’s arm, but he still kept his hand next to Ethan, so the tips of their fingers were still touching. And Ethan actually doubted that Noah liked him. I could not believe these two.

Noah then continued with the part of me and Tim being kidnapped and told Rose about everything that we saw in the mine. I had to look away when Noah got to the part of the room full of dead girls and when we saw Eztli sacrificing the girl in his temple. I then tried to zone out for a bit because I was afraid I’d actually start having another attack if I had to relieve the story once more. When I looked back Noah was already at the end of the story and was telling Rose about how they finally captured Eztli, figuring out that Doctor Rachel Davis has escaped and getting us to the hospital.

When Noah finished the story, for a minute complete silence surrounded us. That was until Rose started talking. And by talking, I mean swearing and yelling out insults that I would rather not repeat. She was walking up and down Ethan’s hospital room saying things that sounded Latin and I believe she said something about how she would sacrifice Eztli and “examine” Doctor Rachel Davis. The rest of us were watching her with wide eyes, except for Noah, who looked like he was used to this type of behavior coming from the woman in front of us. When she was finished with her many, many, many threats towards our kidnappers, to some of which I didn’t necessarily object, she walked back to her duffel bag and put the Bowie knife back in, pulling out a pair of black fingerless gloves instead, put them on and played with the threads that were hanging from the sides of the gloves. She then turned towards Noah again and raised her eyebrows. ‘So, what exactly is the plan here then? Just head down to the station and ask the Aztec fanboy if he knows the whereabouts of Doctor Frankenstein?’ Noah smiled and shook his head slightly. ‘Well, yes and no. I mean I expect that even if he does know where Doctor Davis is hiding he won’t just tell us. He’ll probably want to get out of jail sooner or something…’ He saw Ethan’s face whitening and hurriedly continued, ‘No, no, no, don’t worry; we won’t let him get out of jail ahead of time. The only thing for him to avoid is capital punishment, but he’ll still get a life sentence. He may not have had his trial yet, but I can guarantee you Ethan, he will never hurt you ever again.’ Ethan slowly nodded but I could see that he was still slightly shaken up by the thought of Eztli getting out of prison ahead of time. Ethan cleared his throat and then spoke up. ‘I…I want to go with you. To question Eztli I mean.’ Noah looked at him, a mix of shock and concern on his face, and I knew that expression was mirrored on all of our faces. Noah recovered first. ‘Ethan, you can’t! Seeing Eztli again after everything that has happened to you, it could break you completely! Why would you want to go with us anyways? I understand that he is your brother, but still…’ Ethan shook his head. ‘No, this isn’t about being brothers or any of that blood makes you family crap. To be honest, I don’t even know why I want to go, but I just feel like I have to. I won’t even go into the holding cell with you, I’ll watch from the other side of the double way mirror while you and Rose question him. I’ll be fine I promise. Look, I’ve got nowhere to be, I’ll be an adult in a few days anyways and I’ve mostly lived on my own for the last few years as well. So? What do you say?’ Ethan then looked at Noah with pleading eyes and if the situation weren’t so serious, I would laugh. I looked over at Eztli and could see that he was weighing options. ‘Fine, you can come with us, but the minute you start to feel bad or having second thoughts you tell me and go home, you got it? Oh, and more question. How do you know how a questioning of a suspect in custody looks like?’ Ethan just shrugged. ‘I was a troubled kid, seen my fair share of police stations in my life.’ At this point Ethan looked like he was about to hug him, but before any of us could say anything the door sprung open and in burst two people. 

My mom and my dad.

Before I knew it, I was in their arms, crying tears of happiness, crying out all of my feelings, every ounce of pain I endured while being taken, everything. They held onto me and it was hard to tell who was supporting who. I could hear my mom sobbing and even my dad was quietly crying while hugging us both. I had missed them so much. From the moment I had woken up in that cell, bound and dizzy, not knowing where I was or what happened. Every single time I was beat up by Eztli I wished I could go back to my parents and to my home. I love my family, because my family, it’s just the right mix of chaos and love. Because no, we may not be perfect, no one is perfect, and no family is perfect either. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you fight, cry, argue or even stop talking to each other sometimes. At the end of the day, all that matters is that the family is together, no matter who or how many people it consists of, no matter if your family are your parents and brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts or your best friends, the important thing is that you are together, because no matter what, the love in a family will always be there.  
I hugged them until I felt like I had to sit down, or I would collapse otherwise. It was all so much at once. I mean, seeing my parents again after such a long time of being locked up, meeting Rose, the person who would be able to help us find Doctor Rachel Davis... I quickly pulled the chair that I was sitting on before towards me and sat down, still not quite believing that this was really happening. I looked around and saw that my mom and dad had a hard time processing it all as well. My mom sat on a chair next to me and was wiping her tears away with her hand, while my dad looked around the room and then stepped towards Stone and shook his hand. ‘Thank you so much for bringing her back home to us. I know that whatever I say will just sound like empty words but believe me, without Juliet, our lives would be so much emptier. So once again, thank you.’ Stone gave a thin smile and shook my dad’s hand. ‘Of course. It is our job after all. Although Juliet and Mister Castro over there got out of the mine completely on their own. Maybe that’s something that your daughter can tell you about at home.’ I nodded, but when I locked eyes with Ethan I knew that I would be leaving out so many parts of the story, I absolutely couldn’t afford to get another attack like before.

I stood up and while my parents were talking with Noah and Stone, I walked over to Ethan and sat down next to him on his bed. ‘I know I’m going home right now, but this will not be the last we see each other all right? You keep me posted on everything that happens. I’m probably going to come back to the hospital to visit Tim again soon, but in the meanwhile, you, Noah and Rose are going to go talk to Eztli right?’ he nodded. ‘Yeah, like I said, I don’t know why I want to go and see him again, but I just feel like it’s something that I have to do you know? But don’t worry, as soon as we get from the police station, which is going to be later today or when Rose finds Doctor Rachel Davis, I’ll call you. You just take care of yourself, you got it Jules?’ I smiled and nodded. ‘I will, I promise. You take care of yourself too, okay? Where are you going to be staying in the meantime anyways? At your foster family?’ Ethan shrugged. ‘To be honest, I don’t know yet. But I’ve signed up to a nearby college and I got the acceptance letter a few days before… Anyways, the college is one town over, in Strodwood. They have a great course that focuses on Psychology and such, and I really like it. I’m probably going to study it part time and work in-between, so I’ll be able to afford an apartment while studying there and have a place to live afterwards as well. Until the school year starts, I’m going to be staying with my foster family and work for a bit.’ I smiled and nudged his shoulder. ‘You know, that sounds like a really great plan, Tim and I were thinking of going to that college once we finish high school as well, so in about a year. But, while I do think that your plan sounds great, there’s something missing.’ ‘Yeah? What’s that?’ I grinned and looked towards Noah who was talking to my parents with a smile on his face. ‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe hanging out a bit with a certain green-eyed sergeant?’ Noah scoffed, ‘What are you talking about Juliet? Noah’s eyes aren’t green, they’re caramel gold sometimes even light brown…’ he looked over at me and saw that I was grinning. His cheecks colored a faint red and I heard him curse under his breath. I leaned back on my hands, fully intentional to take advantage of this. ‘And how would you know what color his eyes are or even how the color changes sometimes?’ ‘Shut up.’ He muttered and I smirked and then slowly got up as I saw my parents getting ready to leave the hospital. 

I walked towards Noah and looked up at him. I honestly didn’t know what to say. I know that he wasn’t the one responsible for my case, but he was still so much nicer to me then Stone. ‘Thank you. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but believe me, you helped us get a part of our normal life back.’ Noah smiled and shook my hand. ‘Hey, don’t thank me, you and Ethan got out of that mine all on your own.’ I smiled and looked over at Ethan who was looking out of the hospital window. I turned back to Noah. I knew that Ethan might kill me for what I was about to tell Noah, but I just had to say it. ‘Yeah, speaking of Ethan, he probably won’t admit this, hell, he might not even realize it, but he needs you right now. I don’t mean that you have to look after him every second of every day, he’s not some damsel in distress, far from it, just, take care of him a bit, please? Especially now that you’re going to go question Eztli. I may not know Ethan all that well, but he deserves to be taken care of, to have someone by his side that understands him.’ Noah smiled, his cheecks and neck coloring a faint pink. ‘I know. I mean, I know he deserves all that. I don’t exactly know how to do all that, but I can promise you that I’ll try my best. You take care of yourself too alright Juliet?’ ‘Absolutely. I’ll see you around Noah.’ He nodded I walked over to Stone to thank him as well. I might not like him as much as I like Noah, but he was still responsible for my case and I knew that he and Noah are going to do anything they will be able to put Eztli in prison for the rest of his life and to find Doctor Rachel as well. He shook my hand as well and his lips formed what could be referred to as a smile. If you looked closely, that is. ‘Good luck Juliet. We are all happy you are alright’ he said to me. I nodded and then turned to Rose, who was standing at the head of Ethan’s bed with her arms and ankles crossed. She looked at me and smirked. ‘Good luck’ I said to her, ‘with finding Doctor Rachel.’ She nodded; the smirk still present on her face. ‘Oh, we’ll find her alright, don’t you worry about it.’ I smiled, looked at everyone in the room again and then left the hospital, with my parents in tow.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be driving home. The road was still a bit jammed, but nevertheless, I enjoyed the ride. As soon as we got home I could smell the homey aroma around the house, saw the beautiful view out of my bedroom window, that I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to see it again. I took some clean clothes out of my wardrobe, a pair of dark grey sweatpants, a red t-shirt and a fluffy black hoodie with a skateboard on the back that Harry got me for my birthday last year. I then went into the bathroom and took a nice, relaxing shower. It felt so nice to finally shower after such a long time of wearing the same clothes and not being able to even wash my hands or face. After I got out of the shower and got dressed, I started drying my hair in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom and only then I saw how much I had changed while I was in the mine. My hair was always messy and tangled, the brown waves never were falling down my back very nicely, but now, my hair was so different. While before it had volume and shape, now it was lying in messy strands, looking unhealthy and thin, it had split ends and quite a lot of it fell out as well. My blue eyes seemed sad and empty, with no real spark in them, only sadness. My cheecks were once full and a healthy pink color with a bit of blush on each, but now they looked hollow and my face looked like a skeleton’s. my body looked like a skeleton’s in general. Before I was kidnapped I used to have slight muscles on my legs, arms and abdomen, but now my legs looked like they were just skin and bones, you could almost count my ribs and my arms weren’t looking so much better either. Before I put my shirt on, I also saw the bruises forming along my ribcage and the moment I touched them, it sent pain up my spine and I winced slightly. I quickly pulled on my t-shirt, pants and zipped up my hoodie. If I looked like that, I wondered how Ethan must look and feel right now, considering how long he spent in the mine. I tried to get my mind away from all of the dark thoughts and went to the kitchen to eat. My mom and dad prepared some lunch while I was showering and getting dressed. It was nothing fancy, but it was my absolute favorite meal in the world, fried cheese, with some fries on the side and fresh lettuce. I’m pretty sure I could eat that my whole life and never get tired of it. While we ate, my parents carefully asked how I was and if I wanted to get anything off my chest, either considering the mine, Eztli, Tim or anything else in general. I slowly shook my head since I really didn’t want to tell them my story all over again. I know I’ll have to talk about it in court anyways and I’ve decided to try and avoid telling it more times than necessary.

Once we finished the meal I went into my bedroom and just laid down on my bed. I didn’t realize how much I would miss the feeling of laying down on my own bed. I then sat up on my bed and my mind started going places. Yet once again the memories of the mine tried to get back into my mind, but I pushed them away. I knew that I wouldn’t always be able to do so and I was afraid of the day when I couldn’t push them away anymore and I would be able feel as if I was back in the mine once again. I tried to focus on other things. Like the fact that the summer holidays would start soon, and that Noah, Ethan and Rose were probably on their way to the police station right now. I started thinking about how they were doing rather than being stuck inside my nightmares that would surely come back to haunt me during the night.  
\--------------------  
Being inside Noah’s police car could be called relaxing but tense at the at the same time. Noah and Rose were sitting on the front seats with Noah behind the wheel, Rose stretched out on her seat and Ethan was half sitting, half lying down on the back seat. Stone decided to hitch a ride with another police officer and Rose left her motorbike back at the hospital, with Noah promising her he’d drive her back after they talked with Eztli. The drive back to the police station should’ve taken them about 15 minutes, but they all felt like the drive was much shorter than that. Once they got to the station and got out of the car Noah turned to Ethan. He looked him up and down and at last he stopped at his face with concern in his eyes. ‘Ethan, are you really sure you want to do this? I can still take you back home or-‘ ‘For the hundredth time, I’ll be fine! I won’t even talk to Eztli and he won’t know I’m even there either. I’ll stay on the other side of the mirror, I just want to hear what he’ll have to say, that’s the only way I know how to explain it.’ Noah nodded and together the three of them walked into the police station. Once inside, they led Noah, Rose and Ethan towards the questioning room where they brought Eztli. Noah walked with Ethan towards the other side of the questioning room from where he would be able to observe everything that was happening but would not be seen by Eztli at the same time. They both looked through the glass, where on the other side Eztli sat at a table with another police officer looking after him. Eztli was still wearing his usual attire, just not as much of it as before. This time he was dressed in bright blue loose jeans, a red shirt and green Nike sneakers. Noah looked at Ethan again and once he nodded he smiled encouragingly at him and then entered the questioning room with Rose by his side.

The minute they stepped through the door Eztli’s head shot up and he looked at them with a smirk on his face, his eyes full of danger. He looked at Ethan first and then his eyes skipped over to Rose, his eyebrows lifting. Rose just shot him a dirty look and rolled her eyes and then sat opposite Eztli at the table. Noah was still standing at the door and when Rose looked back at him she could see that he was almost shaking with rage, his eyes shooting daggers at Eztli. Once the latter saw the looks h got from Noah he just smiled, but it was clear that he was faking it. He looked up at Ethan again and started speaking with obvious sarcasm. ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t my future brother in law!’ Eztli’s eyes darkened again. ‘We meet again.’


	14. The hunt begins

Ethan sucked in a deep breath at Eztli’s words. He knew he hadn’t heard him in a really long time and while he told Noah that he was ready to face Eztli again, both of them knew that wasn’t the truth. Eztli’s words were cold and you could hear the poison they held. Noah and Rose were currently standing in front of the table with Eztli sitting across from them. Rose had a calm and calculating look in her eyes, her posture shined with strength and she looked ready to take down anyone that got in her way. Noah, however looked like her polar opposite. Ethan saw the way he was looking at Eztli and it was in a way no one would want to be looked at, ever. He was looking at Eztli with hot rage in his eyes, mixed with so much hate that one could almost see his intentions towards the man sitting across the table. While Ethan completely understood where Noah’s look was coming from, better than anyone, really, he was still quite taken aback by what he saw in front of him. Because Noah was always so kind to him and understanding, helping and supportive. It was almost terrifying to Ethan to see him this way. He guessed it was true what they said that even the nicest people have their limits. That you should never try to make them reach that point because the nicest people are also the scariest when they’ve had enough. And right now, Ethan looked pretty damn close to that point. Ethan looked at Rose again, who touched Noah’s hand slightly with the tips of her fingers. And Ethan almost started feeling like he was before he met Rose, but when he saw that her touch was only to calm Noah down, he took a deep breath and focused on what was going on in front of him instead.

Noah and Rose both took a seat at the table and Rose placed a recorder on the table and pressed the on button. ‘State your name for the evidence.’ Eztli leaned forward in his chair and got a bit closer to the recorder. A thought then entered Ethan’s mind. What was he going to say? Eztli or Aaron Jam- ‘My name is Eztli.’ Ethan dropped his gaze. Of course. He looked back up and saw that Rose had started talking again. ‘You have the right to be produced before the nearest magistrate with 24 hours. You have the right to consult with a lawyer before your defense. First of all, you are held here today for the kidnapping and murdering more than 20 minors, and only three of them had been found alive. We are here today to ask you a few short questions regarding this case. Do you understand?’ Eztli nodded shortly the cold look still in his eyes and turned towards Noah. ‘I understand completely. Just tell me something, would you brown eyes?’ 

Ethan saw Noah clench his jaw slightly and this was the worst possible time to get distracted, but damn. He could still see Noah staring Eztli down though, so he guessed that Noah probably wasn’t thinking the kindest things right now. ‘So, this girl right here with you? You cheating on my baby brother with her? Because that’s messed up dude.’ Noah gripped the edges of the table but ignored Eztli, nevertheless. Rose tried to look at Noah, but he avoided he eyes and looked the other way, so Rose decided to speak instead of him. ‘We want you to ask a question about the person you work with.’ ‘I work alone.’ Rose shook her head and tried again. ‘No, you don’t. You know her under the name Rachel Davis, but I think that we both know that that isn’t her real name. She was the one that helped you with the surgical part of your operation, shall we say so, I believe? You know, the one that cut out the girls’ organs and put Tim in a coma?’ Eztli had a cruel smile on her face. ‘Oh yeah, her! Of course, I know her. You might not know this, but let me tell you, it was a real joy watching her work. The way she cut into those people like it was some kind of art, she was really invested in her job I’ll give her that, a real talent in her field.’ Noah and Rose both had angry looks in their eyes, but Rose had somehow managed to calm down. How she did that, Ethan will never know. ‘So, what exactly would you like to know about my friend? Her favorite food, her taste in music, what pets does she have?’ Rose looked at him again but before she could say anything, Noah spoke up. ‘No, we want you to tell us where she lives.’ Eztli looked at him again and smirked. ‘Oh, look at that, it speaks!’ Noah glared at him again. ‘Can you tell us where she lives or not?’ Eztli smiled cruelly at him. ‘Well I could, but why would I want to? She’ll probably have me killed the minute I open my mouth and you didn’t ask all that nicely now did you? Except of course, what if I got something out of this? Like say, oh, I don’t know, a shorter time in prison maybe?’ he leaned forward leisurely and looked up at Rose and Noah from underneath his brows. 

Ethan shuddered the minute he heard that and could feel himself starting to lose his breath. He leaned his forehead on the glass in front of him and as he felt the cold of the glass seep through the skin he calmed down little by little. Once he felt like he could breathe at least a little more normally, he looked at the room in front of him again and could see Noah staring angrily at Eztli as he spoke up again. ‘Yeah no way, you can forget it.’ ‘Very well, then you can forget about finding out where my dear friend Rachel lives.’ ‘Can’t be that dear of a friend if you’re willing to betray her for your freedom now can she?’ Rose pipped up. Eztli waved his hand, ‘Eh, she’d do the same thing. So, do we have a deal or not?’ Rose shook her head curtly, ‘No, we absolutely do not.’ Noah then cut in. ‘See here’s the thing, Aaron-‘ ‘That is not my name!’ Eztli growled lowly but Noah just smirked. ‘Yeah and I don’t care. The thing is, the way you’re going is not only to jail, but just straight downstairs, or should I specify this for you even more? You’re not going to see your sun gods anytime soon, but you will however, soon meet your god of death, what is his name again Rose?’ ‘Mictlantecuhtli.’ ‘Ah yes, Mictlantecuhtli. So, what’s it gonna be Aaron? Tell us where your dear friend Rachel, as you put it, lives, or meet good old Mic a bit too soon?’ Ethan could not believe his ears. He had never seen or heard Noah talk rudely to someone let alone threaten someone with death. But Noah just got one over Eztli and everyone knew it. By calling him by his birth name alone, he angered Eztli a great deal, but bringing the Aztec gods into the conversation as well? That was the final punch for Eztli, and Ethan had never felt as proud or as happy as he did in that moment, even if he was staring at his kidnapper that was also his long-lost brother again.

Noah and Eztli were currently having a glaring match with Rose looking at Eztli as well. After about half a minute or so, Eztli finally broke eye contact and looked away and at Rose. ‘So, what you’re saying is, if I tell you Rachel’s whereabouts, I won’t get a death sentence?’ Rose nodded sternly and looked at Noah who was looking quite satisfied but still glaring at Eztli. Rose looked at Eztli again and Ethan could see that she also had a small smile playing in the corner her mouth. ‘Yeah, basically. You’ll probably still go to jail for life, of course that’s for the judge to decide, but you won’t get a death sentence. If, you tell us where she is of course.’ Eztli glared at Noah, ‘Of course. Now I cannot tell you the exact address, and before you ask why not, it’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because I can’t. I don’t know where exactly she lives, I’ve never been there. All I know is that she spends most of her time in an abandoned warehouse, but considering she was always at my place pretty soon after I called her, I don’t think that the place could be further away from here than about 20 kilometers. I don’t know if she actually lives there or what exactly she does there, but that’s really none of my business.’ Eztli looked at Rose again, with hate present in his eyes once again ‘Will that be all?’ Rose nodded ‘thank you for your cooperation’. She said and Noah and she got up and started towards the door. Eztli however, spoke up again. ‘Oh, and brown eyes? Tell my little brother hi for me and that I’ll see him again soon will you?’ Noah’s eyes hardened again. ‘The hell you will, you’re never getting near Ethan again.’ Noah smirked. ‘Yeah, that’s what you think. Keep close to that boyfriend of yours huh?’ Noah was at Eztli’s side in a second, grabbing the side of his collar and pulling him up towards him, one hand in the air, ready to punch Eztli in the face. Before he could do so, however, Rose was next to him, gently tugging his right arm down gently. ‘Hey, calm down Noah. He’s just provoking you, we all know he’s never gonna get out of the prison ever again, he’s just trying to get a raise out of you. So just listen to me alright? Let him go, he’ll get his justice and you won’t have to be fired and I won’t have to work alone. Again.’ Noah slowly lowered his hand, but Ethan could see that he was truly very angry. And who wouldn’t be? Noah was literally so close to punching Eztli and the latter didn’t seem to be even slightly affected by it. Just the opposite, really. Eztli face looked calm, even somewhat happy, probably because of the fact that he managed to provoke Noah so far. He slowly let go of Eztli and followed Rose out the door, without sparing one more look in Eztli’s direction. 

Once they exited the room, Ethan left his as well and met them in the hall. He looked up at Noah and saw that he was trying to avoid his eyes at first but then looked at him at last. Ethan could see worry in Noah’s eyes and he saw that he was right about that as Noah spoke. ‘Are you alright? Because some of the things that Eztli said in there, I was worried of how they would affect you and if you would last until the end or if you wanted to go home sooner, which would’ve been alright if you did, I-‘ Ethan rolled his eyes and interrupted Noah ‘Hey, stop talking for a second will you? I was fine, I was a little bit bad when he said that he’d get out of prison sooner, but I managed to calm myself down slightly. Oh, and by the way, the way you took him down with the Aztec god part, that was pretty amazing.’ Noah looked at Ethan at that part and raised one eyebrow. ‘Yeah, you liked that?’ and Ethan could hear his voice dropped a few octaves lower and found that he was not against that in the slightest. Rose looked between them and then rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, get a room you two.’ At her comment, Noah’s eyes widened and Ethan and Noah both blushed and then looked away from each other. Rose chuckled at his reactions and then started walking towards the briefing room and started explaining her plan once they got there. ‘So, here’s my idea. I’ve done loads of cases where the suspect was hiding in an abandoned warehouse, so I’ve got some experience when it comes to these kinds of cases. First I’ll see how many warehouses there are about 25 kilometers from here, but if my memory serves me right, and it usually does, there’s a load of them. So, I’ll probably see who they were last registered to, if anyone was recently seen near them and then we’ll see how it will all go down. Once I’m done with the first part of my plan I’ll report back to you and tell you how I’m going to continue with it. All clear and agreed’ Noah and Ethan both nodded and then they all started towards the exit. Noah turned towards Ethan again who could see that he was back to being his old nice self and Ethan was happy with that. ‘So, I have to give Rose a ride to the hospital so she can pick up her motorbike again, do you want me to drive you home?’ Ethan looked down at the ground and then back up at Noah uncertainly ‘If you want to, sure. I mean I’m currently living with my foster family about 10 minutes away from here and I know that they already know I’m safe and all that, I talked to them on the phone before, when you went to visit Tim with Juliet. I told them that I’ll tell them once I’ll get home, because both of them are about two hours away from here at some meeting and I told them I’d be home before that anyways. So, I mean they’re currently not home and I promised Juliet that I’d call her and tell her about what happened at the police station anyways. To summarize, yeah, you can give me a ride home.’ Noah smiled at him and Ethan found himself returning the gesture.

They all got into Noah’s car again, but this time the atmosphere was much lighter and there was almost zero tension hanging in the air. Once they got back to the hospital and Noah turned off the car, Rose turned in her seat a bit. She looked from Noah to Ethan and then to Noah again. ‘Alright then. This is where I get off. I’ll go home, tell you what I find and in the meantime, you take care of Ethan, alright Noah?’ ‘I don’t need babysitting-‘ ‘Let me finish would you? Noah, you get Ethan home safely and Ethan, you watch Noah, so he doesn’t do anything stupid, he does that a lot.’ Ethan chuckled and Noah glared at Rose ‘I do not!’ Rose just nodded and looked towards the parking lot. ‘Mhm Noey, of course you don’t. Anyways, I’ll see you boys later alright? Thanks for the ride N.’ She then got out of the car, her duffel across her chest and her gloves on her arms. She put on the helmet that was resting on the seat of the black and gold Honda Africa Twin. She mounted the bike, turned it on and sped of the parking lot with a salute thrown their way. Noah just shook his head with a smile and smile and Ethan climbed on the front seat. ‘So?’ he asked him as Ethan fiddled his seatbelt, ‘Where do you live?’ Ethan’s head shot up and a slight blush dusted his cheecks. ‘Oh right! Just turn right when you exit the parking lot and I’ll tell you the directions during the drive.’ Noah nodded, turned the car back on and did as Ethan had said. They drove down the streets with Noah occasionally asking for directions. 

After a short while Noah stopped the car in front of a two-storey house. It was a faint peach-like color with flowerpots decorating the windows and a few rose bushes were leading up to the front door. Noah looked at the house for a minute and then whistled appraisingly, ‘Nice house.’ Ethan nodded at first and then shrugged slightly. ‘Yeah, it took me a while to get used to it though. I mean I went from practically living on the streets to living in a suburban two-storey house with big windows, that are actually clean, a manicured garden and people that took care of it all. Some days, I still couldn’t quite believe it. To be honest with you, I don’t think I ever will.’ Noah nodded and they both sat in silence for a few more moments until Ethan coughed awkwardly and Noah looked at him. ‘I uh, I better get inside. My foster parents are probably going to come home soon and they’re going to have a lot of questions, which I don’t blame them for at all.’ Noah nodded again and then looked at Ethan in concern. ‘Are you going to be ok, though? I mean if you’re going to have to talk about it or anything like that…’ Ethan just shrugged to that and then looked out of the car’s window. ‘I’ll be fine. I mean yeah, there will probably still be moments when I’ll feel like dying and stuff, but I’ll deal with it.’ Noah rolled his eyes and then reached over Ethan’s lap and opened the glove box. ‘What are yo…’ ‘Shush Ethan.’ Noah pulled a small notebook and a pen out of the glove box and tore a page out and then started writing on it. Ethan was torn between asking him what he was doing and just staring at Noah. He decided for the latter. When Noah was finally done with whatever it was he was writing on the piece of paper, he folded it over and then handed it to Ethan. ‘This is my work cell number and my personal number. Use it. Whenever you feel like it’s all too much or when you feel like you did at the hospital or just when you want to talk about stuff. You got it?’ Ethan was looking at the piece of paper in his hand confusingly for a while but then he finally smiled a little with a slight blush on his cheeks and nodded softly. ‘Yeah, I got it. Thanks Noah.’ He turned his head to look at him and saw that he was already looking at him. When he saw that Ethan saw him staring, he cleared his throat and looked away towards the house in front of them. Ethan joined him and then pulled on his jumper and turned to Noah again. ‘Thanks again. For driving me, the stuff at the hospital and you know, being the responsible one for my case of disappearance.’ Noah chuckled at that. ‘Of course, anytime. And call me once your parents get home ok? That way, I’ll know that you’re ok and I’ll be able to call you once Rose finds out about Rachel, alright?’ Ethan nodded at that and then slowly exited the car. Before he closed the door he turned towards Noah again and once he smiled at him, Ethan waved shyly and then turned and walked towards the house. Noah then waited until Ethan door closed behind him and a light turned on inside the house, probably in the living room. Only after that, Noah turned on the car again and then drove off. 

Once he finally got back home Noah unlocked the door to his apartment and left his car keys on the table by the door, along with his apartment keys. He then made his way towards the fridge where he wandered for a while but then settled on a can of soda and went to sit on the couch with his laptop in one hand and his phone in the other. He put everything down on the coffee table in front of him and then started writing the report. He had a lot of paperwork to do. Especially considering Ethan and his kidnapping. He remembered the days he spent in his office, just staring at Ethan’s picture on the wall in front of him and wondering if Ethan was even alive anymore. He heard of so many stories of the town’s kidnappings, all done by Eztli. He heard about Charlotte, the student from the nearby town, he heard about Tim and Juliet, the two almost 17-year olds, kidnapped within a few days. And last but not least, he heard about Ethan. He was his first case, after arriving to the city. Sure, he helped with other cases before, either at internships or at the academy, where they sometimes got real cases to solve. Easier than these ones of course, but cases, nevertheless. He always worked with Rose. He was his partner in crime, to put it ironically. They always stuck together, always had each other’s back, no matter what. And then one day, there came the case of the robbery at a lonely street in his hometown. Noah winced just thinking about it. He and Rose were on patrol, just finishing their internships at yet another one of the police stations they’ve been sent to as a part of the learning programme at the academy. They were walking down the street and the sun was setting, making the surroundings glow a part orange, part grey light. Every corner seemed darker than during the day, but they’ve been on this patrol every day for the last month. They knew this town; Noah grew up in it. But then, just as they were walking back towards their car, they heard some noise from around the corner and they decided to go and take a look. It was most likely nothing, probably just a stray cat, but it was their duty to check if any suspicious noises were to arise. So, they turned around the corner and they could see a man dressed in black pants and a dirty green hoodie pulled down over his face robbing a woman who couldn’t be older than 19. The man was holding the woman back by her neck and was forcing her to hand over her bag and phone. Before she could do so, however, Noah and Rose charged into action and started running towards the guy. He must have heard them coming because he turned around towards them and pulled a gun out of his pocket. As he did, Noah could see his face and he was suddenly frozen on the spot. Because the guy in the dirty green hoodie was his old friend and schoolmate, Jed Malkins. He knew him for about eight years, before they went to different universities, but it looked like Jed didn’t get far. He didn’t see to recognize Noah, or he just didn’t care as he shot at him and then ran off. Noah only had time to scream at Rose to go after the guy before he collapsed on the floor, his right leg throbbing in pain. He could hear some yelling, but he couldn’t hear how away it was, because everything he could focus on at the moment had been the pain that seemed to be spreading through his leg. After some time, he couldn’t tell whether it was minutes or half an hour, Rose came back, Jed walking in front of her, his hands cuffed behind him. Rose led Jed towards the police car and called for reinforcements, which luckily arrived pretty quickly. After Jed was being taken over by some of the other police officers, Rose came and kneeled down at Noah’s side. ‘You might wanna tell me what the hell happened to you back there?’ Noah looked up at her and then away as the paramedics carefully bandaged up his leg to take him to the hospital. ‘I knew him Rose. He was my friend. I don’t know what happened, but I just froze.’ Rose exhaled deeply and then looked at him again. ‘Look, I get it ok, I really do, you saw someone that you thought of as a friend waving a gun at you. Most people wouldn’t know what to do either. But in this job we can’t allow our feelings to get the best of us. That comes after our shift ends. When we take off our uniforms and lay down in our beds or sit down on our couches. That’s when we can think about that. Because here Noah? In the field? If you let your feeling get the better of you, you can not only lose your job, you can get killed. And I don’t want that to happen. Don’t make me lose my hunter in crime Noah, don’t make me work alone, alright?’ 

Noah was brought back to the reality by the ringing of his cell phone on the coffee table in front of him. He rubbed his knee and winced; it never did heal correctly. He turned the phone over and speak of the devil… Rose was calling him. He swiped at the accept call icon on his screen and lifted his phone to his ear. ‘Yeah?’ ‘I found The Doctor.’ Noah could hear the smile in her voice, ‘I know where this bastard’s hiding. Get off your ass Noey, we’re going hunting.’


	15. Fire and ashes

I was sitting on my bed, waiting. Waiting for a call from Ethan, waiting for the time to pass, just waiting. My parents obviously didn’t let me go anywhere by myself, which I understood. I talked to them. I told them how scared I truly was, how much I missed them, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them anything about the mine. I was too scared that the attacks would start again. So, I was sitting on my bed, going through my CDs and looking blankly at the posters that were hung above my bed. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t sleep, because then I’d be back in the mine again, I couldn’t read or watch a movie. I didn’t know why. I somehow just couldn’t find the energy in myself to do it. I felt powerless and weak. But at least I was back home and hopefully Ethan was too. My parents said I could go and visit Tim in the hospital the next day, I was waiting for that as well. My mom walked in my room a few times, asking me if I needed anything. I just wanted to see my friends. She said that if I wanted to, Harry could come over and visit. When I heard that, I felt lighter in a way. I could finally see at least one of my friends, one of the people that I have missed so much while being locked away. I closed my eyes and willed my mind to think about nature. If I let my mind wander, I’d see my nightmares again, I’d see Eztli and I’d see Tim cut open on that table, all of it would come rushing back into my mind and I wasn’t sure that I could get rid of it. I thought of school, it would be ending soon and I didn’t have to go back until the end, since I had finished all of my tests already and both my parents and teachers agreed that it would be better if I just stayed at home until everything passed over at least a bit. 

I was just thinking of maybe walking around the house, turn on the radio, to do something, anything, to occupy myself with, when I heard the doorbell and then a second later I heard steps coming up the stairs to our apartment. I walked out of my bedroom to the living room and as soon as I opened the door I was being swept up into a hug by Harry. Finally, he was here, and I hugged him back as well. I quickly regretted it however, when I could feel the sharp pain below my ribs. I totally forgot about Eztli’s beatings and my bruises as soon as I saw him. He’s always had a calming effect on me, now even more, considering all that’s happened. I winced slightly and he quickly let go and started apologizing. ‘Oh my god, I am so so sorry, I completely forgot about that, I…’ ‘Hey, it’s ok, aright? C’mon, let’s go to my room, we’ve got a lot to catch up on.’ He nodded then and followed me to my room where he sat on my bad and I sat down on my beanbag chair. I looked at him and smiled softly. I really have missed him so much, and for once, I knew for sure that the future was going to be brighter just with him being by my side. He looked at me, ran a hand through his hair and then spoke up. ‘So, I’m not going to ask you if you’re alright, because I’m sure that a lot of people have asked you that already, and you must not be feeling the best, but… what’re you thinking of? You don’t have to tell me what went on when you were gone, I know that those kinds of memories don’t exactly light a spark of happiness in someone.’ I nodded and smiled gratefully at him. ‘Yeah, I mean, it definitely has not been ideal. I mean, I am not going to talk about what happened in the mine, but… mostly at the minute I’m worried. Tim still hasn’t woken up from his coma, Ethan hasn’t called me either to tell me whether they found Rachel yet or not, and I’m just so scared that something is going to go wrong and even more people are going to get hurt and that is the last thing that I want. Too many people has gotten hurt as it is, I do not want that number to rise even more.’ Harry nodded understandingly and then sat next to me and pulled me into a hug. ‘I’m not going to say that everything’s going to be ok, because no one knows what’s going to happen in the future, we don’t even know what’s going to happen an hour from now. But I am going to say this. I am always going to be by your side, anytime. And Juliet? You are amazing, you are a badass and you got this. And please don’t worry this much. I know it seems impossible not to worry about it, but worrying about stuff? It doesn’t take away any of tomorrow’s worries, it just takes away today’s peace, alright? So, until Ethan calls… wait, who is Ethan anyways?’ I rolled my eyes and quickly told him about how I met Ethan, Noah and Rose. Harry just nodded, though he did seem to be a little out of it. But then again, it isn’t exactly everyday your best friend tells you about being kidnapped and making friends in the process. After that we just sat next to each other for about half an hour eating cookies. It was nice, we didn’t have to talk, we just sat in silence next to each other. We did that often. Though right then, the comfortable silence was suddenly being broken by the sound of the landline phone ringing in the hallway.

I looked at Harry who shrugged but got up nevertheless and then pulled me up as well. We walked to the out of my room and I picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’ ‘Yeah, hi. Jules?’ a voice cracked up through the phone. It was Ethan. Finally. ‘Hey! How are you? Did you get home safely? Did Noah call you about Rachel yet?’ I heard him sigh on the other end and could almost hear him roll his eyes. ‘Ok, first of all, calm down, I’m fine. I can usually take care of myself ok. Noah drove me home after Rose and him questioned Eztli. My foster parents just came home about 30 minutes ago as well and after a whole lot of catching up, they let me go to my room to take a minute to breathe.’ I was happy to hear that. Happy to hear that Ethan was once again with his foster parents, with the people he trusted and happy that seeing Eztli didn’t affect him as much as we all worried it would. Or at least I hoped he was ok. ‘How are you? I mean after… everything?’ ‘Seeing Eztli again you mean? I’m relatively ok I guess, I mean, Noah and Rose were both there with me, so I was alright. Now, onto the reason of why I called you. Noah just called, he said that Rose got a lead on Rachel and the two of them are currently tracking her. So… Yeah. I thought I’d give you a call, see how you were doing and all.’ I nodded and Harry meanwhile brought the beanbag chair from my room and we both collapsed on it. ‘I’m alright. I mean as alright as I’ll ever be I guess. My friend, Harry, he’s here now, he came over to visit me, to see how I’m doing after all that’s happened. My parents aren’t letting me go out of the house, which is understandable considering, well, everything really. I’m a bit better than I was in the hospital and my parents are letting me go and see Tim tomorrow, so that’s good too. Anyways, what did Noah say about Rachel and all that? Any idea where they both are at the minute?’ in the meanwhile Harry stood up and brought both us a glass of orange juice that I thankfully took and continued the conversation after Harry sat down next to me again. Ethan then started talking again, ‘Yeah, so. Apparently, Rachel is in some sort of an abandoned warehouse. I don’t know where exactly, but I think it can’t be further than 30 minutes from here. Noah just said that he’d call me as soon as they get her and that was basically it. So right now, we can’t do anything else but wait. I- I’m worried about them Juliet. I mean what if something goes wrong or if one of them gets hurt or…’ I cut him off. ‘Listen to me Ethan. I know you are worried about them and I understand that, really, I do. But Noah and Rose? They’ve been in this for some time. They know there are dangers to it, just like with every job they take. There are possibilities of things going wrong, there always will be, but right now I just need you to be believe that they are going to be okay. And even if something will happen to either of them, they will get through it, you know that. We may have not known Noah and Rose for a long time, but for as long as we have, we’ve both noticed that they’re tough. They could go through anything, as long as they have each other. I would tell you to lay down and rest for a bit, but if you’re even a bit like me, you’ll just end up having nightmares, so I don’t know. Talk to your foster parents maybe, invite a friend over, research that college you want to go to. And before you know it, you’ll see Noah again and everything will be alright.’ I heard some scuffling at the other end of the line and then Ethan’s voice was back. ‘I know, I know it will be alright, I just want all of this to be over already.’ ‘I know. I do too.’ Ethan then said that his foster mom was calling him, and he needed to go. Apparently he was going to help her work on some flowers in their garden and I smiled. I was truly happy that he had such an amazing family now and I was pretty sure that he was too. I then hung up and turned towards Harry again. ‘So? Now what? Wanna watch a movie?’ ‘Sure, you got any in mind?’ I grinned as his eyes widened, ‘oh no, no, no, Juliet, don’t say it, please, I don’t wanna watch it…’ I kept grinning ‘You’re a wizard Harry.’ ‘Oh, come on!’ I just laughed and we walked to my room again searching for a good movie to watch. I was truly hoping that whatever Noah and Rose were up to at the moment, they were ok.

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Noah was sitting in his car, driving towards the spot where Rose said she’d meet him at. He only had a minute or so to drive to the meeting place, so he leaned back in his seat and started looking around himself, trying to spot Rose. When he arrived at the spot, she was already there, standing by her motorbike, looking for something in her duffel bag. As she heard the Noah shutting his car off and parking next to her, she zipped up the bag and walked towards him with the bag slung across her shoulders. Noah stepped out of his car and greeted her with hug then stepped towards the back of his car and opened the trunk. Rose dropped her duffel bag in, and Noah took out his gun from the front seat along with a flashlight and some batteries. He then walked next to Rose and they both checked their weapons in silence. Rose zipped down her jacket and took some bullets from her pocket and she loaded them into one of her guns which she then dropped into the gun holster that she draped along her waist and was hanging down her thigh. When they were both ready Noah locked his car and they started walking towards the supposedly abandoned warehouse that Rose figured out Rachel was currently living in. The warehouse was built at the side of a lonely street, there were a few apartment blocks and other warehouses built around it, but they all seemed to be abandoned as well. The sun was setting, and it was another time, Noah would look at the sunset as he often did and just think about nothing for some time. It usually made him feel forget life’s problems and just relax for some time. At the minute however, Noah’s mind was far away from beautiful sunsets and relaxing moments spent at his apartment. He was thinking of the best possible strategy to go in the building, to secure it, to capture Rachel Davis and to just get the whole case over it. To say he didn’t like the case would be an understatement, he loathed it. He did meet Ethan because of it and help some other people along the way as well, but he always wished that he could meet people under more pleasant circumstances and not when they were on the brink of death. Noah just shook his head to get himself rid of thoughts that were troubling him and decided to focus on the present moment. Rose sent him a few blueprints of the warehouse, so he knew what to expect in general. But still, they both knew they had to be careful, Rachel was dangerous and much more unpredictable than Eztli. 

When they neared the warehouse, Rose signed to Noah to go around to the backdoor of the warehouse and enter it from there, while she enters from the front. Noah quietly walked around the warehouse, his gun in his hand, arms outstretched and slightly bent at the elbows. He slowly tried the back door and surprise, surprise, it was locked. Of course, it was, is it ever not? Noah quickly took the lock pick out of his back pocket and got to work. He never would have thought that he would be working for the police and know how to pick locks at the same time, but that was what Rose thought him a long time ago, and he had to admit, it did come in pretty handy sometimes. The lock gave in pretty soon and Noah put the lockpick back into his pocket and then slowly opened the door. He didn’t actually know what he expected to find after he opened it, after all, what does one expect to see after he opens the door to an abandoned warehouse? Noah turned on his flashlight and slowly walked through the door. The first thing he could see in front of him was a wall. It was about 3 metres long and high about the same. The edge of it was broken and Noah could see that it wasn’t made of brick or iron, but from wood. He lighted the space around himself and saw that pretty much the whole space was made of wooden walls. It probably used to be a storage facility for some factory, but then got left behind but nobody had the money or energy to rebuild it or at least clean it out. Noah turned the flashlight towards the ceiling and saw that there was actually another floor up there, though it looked newer and not as badly damaged and ragged as the walls on the floor level were. He just rolled his eyes, it’s gonna take quite some time to find Rachel in this maze of a place, but Rose said that she was in the warehouse at the moment, so they were going to give it their best to try and find her. 

Noah walked on through the wooden halls, stocked with empty shelves, trying to find a sign of Rachel somewhere, anywhere. He just thought about going left at a section of two halls but heard a noise above. He quickly but quietly made his way towards the staircase that was set about 20 metres in front of him. Once he got there, he outstretched his hands and held his gun even more firmly in his hands. He started stepping up the stairs and winced when he heard the first step creek slightly but continued on, nevertheless. Once he got to the top of the stairs he looked around quickly and started walking to his left, his eyes darting from one side to the other all the time. He tried to navigate his way through the wooden walls again, some of them covered with old newspapers, some with plastic sheets. He thought about walking to the end of the floor when he heard gun shots coming from the floor below. He ran as quickly as he could back towards the stairs, trying not to trip on anything laying on the floor. He rushed down the stairs and saw Rose a few metres in front of him, laying on the floor, but before he could run towards her, an unmistakable smell came wafting through the air and Noah felt his blood run cold. it was he smell of burning wood and plastic and he ran the last few metres that were separating him from Rose, grabbed her hand and pulled her up and they both started running towards the doors that Noah came through when he entered the building. He was opening the door and as he stepped through it he looked back again, just to make sure that Rose was still behind him. He saw her from the corner of his eyes and then in the next moment he didn’t. He turned around and saw the reason, which filled him with dread. She was trapped under a big wooden board, which luckily wasn’t on fire, but it was quickly going to be, considering that another part fell on one end of it and it was quickly catching on fire.

Noah had absolutely no idea what to do, he was panicking and tried to think of something, anything to do. The board looked heavy, built from strong wood and it was about 5 metres long and 3 metres wide, not to even mention the other piece that fell down on top of it. There was no way he could lift that by himself. What if he can’t manage to save her in time? What if… Rose’s words came flowing back into his mind, ‘In this job, we can’t allow our feelings to get the best of us.’ Noah shook his head and looked at Rose again. ‘This is probably going to hurt a bit, but I need you to stay with me, ok?’ Rose nodded ‘Ok, here’s what I need you to do. Can you move your hands?’ he asked her and after seeing some fidgeting under the board, she nodded slightly. ‘Alright. I need you to try to lift the board up and hold it with your hands as strongly as you can when I tell you to.’ She nodded again, but Noah could see that she was scared and probably in pain as well. he pulled out his gun and checked that he had bullets in it and then got ready. With sweaty hands he raised his gun and aimed it at the wooden board, about a meter away from Rose. He then pulled the trigger and fired. Once he fired almost every bullet he had at the board, there was a straight line running down the wood. He looked at Rose again. ‘Alright, do it now.’ Rose held the board up with her hand and Noah brought his foot down on the line formed by his bullets. He soon heard the wood cracking and he continued with his work, until he got all the way, and the board was broken in two pieces completely. He quickly kneeled down and pushed the board off of Rose, even though it was in two pieces it was still pretty heavy. He reached down and pulled Rose to her feet when she suddenly screamed in pain. ‘My leg! It hurts so badly! I don’t know what it is, but I can’t even step on it…It hurts so much!’ Noah picked her up and quickly carried her outside and shut the doors of the building. He gently laid her down at the side of the street next to the back door and then got to calling the police, ambulance and the firefighters, seeing as how the fire was still going on. A few minutes later, the firefighters arrived and started putting out the fire. The ambulance arrived with them as well and they quickly carried Rose into it, Noah climbing in as well, with a few police officers staying at the scene, just to make sure that if Rachel were to get out of the building they could catch her.

Noah sat down on the bench next to Rose. ‘Hey, can you look at me Rose?’ she slowly raised her head and looked him in the eyes. ‘Yeah?’ ‘Did you see Rachel in the building? When I heard you shooting, were you shooting at her?’ she looked away and down at her leg. ‘It was her. I almost didn’t see her at first, she was waiting in hiding, probably looking for a good chance to escape after we got there, but as soon as I got in I barricaded the door so she wouldn’t be able to leave through there even if she wanted to. When I was walking around the warehouse, I came to a desk. It was filled with bills and cut out paper articles of people looking for organ donors. They were circled in red, but that wasn’t all. The walls around her desk, there were photos tapped on them.’ Noah looked at her in confusion. ‘Photos? Of what?’ Rose shook her head. ‘Not what Noah, who. The photos on the walls, they included all of the girls that went missing in the last couple of months, including Charlotte and Juliet. Every girl that her and Eztli killed was crossed out with a red x. But there were so many pictures on those walls. About at least 20 more, unmarked. They were planning to kidnap and kill so many more people than they already did… I don’t know when they were going to stop if they even would. I wanted to take the documents with me, as many as I could, but that was when she appeared. I guess she figured out that she couldn’t escape, so her next best tactic was killing us. At first, we fought hands on, because she surprised me, I didn’t even have a chance to pull my gun on her. But when I finally did, she ducked and somehow managed to escape the bullets. She then pulled some string, I have no idea how the hell she had that place wired Noah, but I guess the string was connected to something that started the fire. I tried to run after her, but that’s when she pulled her own gun out and tried to shoot me instead. I had to drop to the floor, and she ran away and then you came rushing down the stairs. But I know she didn’t make it out of the building. I went through every possible blueprint of the place, there ne other doors than the two we came through and she didn’t go through the back ones, because in that case, she would have to pass you. And… oh, fuck, that really hurts!’ she rubbed her leg again and winced in pain.

James Milles, the paramedic that was also present when they found Ethan, Juliet and Tim was in the ambulance and was currently in contact with the hospital, trying to get everything ready for when they would arrive. He then handed the phone to another paramedic and got to work on Rose’s leg. He touched it in a few places and Rose had to say which movements hurt the most and which one she could or couldn’t do. After that James looked up at them. ‘It’s most probably broken. We can’t know for sure yet, but that’s my best guess for now, especially considering what happened. It’s also possible that your leg is broken in more places than one, so you have to be prepared for that.’ Rose just nodded quietly at his diagnosis and then James got started on immobilizing her leg. Rose winced at that and almost yelled out in pain, but there seemed to be no other injuries that either of them had suffered.

When they finally got to the hospital the paramedics quickly took Rose to the emergency room and told Noah to wait in the waiting room. He had to wait there for two hours but it felt like an eternity. After a little over two hours, he was finally allowed to go into the room where Rose was put at the moment. He walked in and she was lying on her bed, still looking a bit drowsy, probably because they put her under anaesthesia, so she wouldn’t feel the pain while the doctors operated on her. Noah sat down next to her on the bed and was just about to ask how she was doing, when his phone rang. He sighed deeply and pulled his phone out of his pocket, a bit surprised when he saw that Lieutenant Stone was calling him. He answered the phone and put him on speaker. ‘Hey, I’m at the hospital with Rose, what’s going on?’ he could hear the Lieutenant take a deep breath on the other side of the phone. 

‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. The firemen searched the warehouse after they put out the fire. Our men were with them as well. They searched that place top to bottom, but… they couldn’t find the Doctor’s body. Anywhere.’


	16. Little voices

I woke up with a start, my mind foggy for a minute before I could remember where I was. I looked around myself. My blanket over my body, my shelf full of old CD’s and books in my direct field of vision, my skateboard against the wall. I was in my bedroom and I was safe. That was enough for me, at least at the moment. When I was dreaming however, my mind wasn’t even nearly as nice to me. I dreamed of Eztli again. I dreamed of seeing Tim on the table again, I dreamed of Charlotte and then I saw myself lying on that table, Doctor Davis above me with a knife in her hands. It’s what woke me up, seeing that knife so close to my skin shook me up and my eyes opened. When it seemed like I was just going to see that same image over and over again if I closed my eyes I decided to get up and at least try to eat something even if my mind was protesting against that. I wandered into the kitchen taking some cereal and pouring it into a bowl. Screw anyone that says that milk should come first. I eat cereal without the milk, how’s that for a plot twist? I had to stop talking to myself. I ate my breakfast and then went to sit on the couch staring at nothing. My mom came into the room a few minutes later and looked at me weirdly. ‘What?’ I asked her. ‘Nothing, I just thought you would be dragging me out of bed the second you woke up, considering your dad and I said you can go and visit Tim today.’ I completely forgot about that. I didn’t how I could but somehow, my mind warped thing up so weirdly that while thinking about Tim I actually managed to forget that I would visit him today. I ran to my room and pulled out some faded camo pants and a black hoodie. I didn’t bother with my hair other than just running my hands through it a few times. People would call it a mess, but hey, I had more important things to do, ok? I laced up my shoes and went to the car where my mom was already waiting, and we drove off towards the hospital. I knew it was gonna be hard to see Tim again, it always will be, him being in a coma, me being reminded of seeing him on that table… it was never going to be easy. I brought my hand up to my mouth and being chewing on my nails absentmindedly. I knew my mom wanted to scold me, but she could see I was stressed so she let it go. She pulled up to the hospital parking and I had to hold myself back from jumping out of the car before she shut it off. The second she did, she grabbed my hand before I could jump out, however. I turned to look at her impatiently. She rolled her eyes. ‘Ok, listen, I have to get some things from the store, so you call me when you’re done here. And be careful, you hear me? Anything weird happens, you either call me or go to one of the staff. I’m gonna walk you to the door and if you feel like it’s all too much, you call me alright? I’m serious Juliet, I’m worried about you, you know I am.’ I nodded. ‘I know. And don’t worry, I’ll call you if anything weird happens or anything.’ She got out of the car then and I followed. She actually ended up walking me to the information desk and left when she made sure I was really alright. I didn’t blame her of course, considering all that’s happened, she was actually handling it surprisingly well.

Once she left I walked to the elevators and pressed the number of the floor that Tim was hospitalized at. I walked down the long hall that seemed to end way too soon and before I knew it I was standing in front of his door again. I took a deep breath and stepped in. I really didn’t know what I was expecting to be honest. He looked the same as he did the last time, maybe there was one tube less connected into his arms, but that was about it really. He was looking like he was asleep but at the same time so lively. I really didn’t know how to describe it. I sat down next to him just like before and took his hand in mine. Yeah I knew it was cheesy, but so what. I exhaled slowly and then looked at him. ‘Hey Tim. It’s me again. I’m betting you’re sick of me already. I don’t know what to tell you really. I mean Noah and Rose went after Rachel and I haven’t heard back from them yet, but they’re probably gonna tell us whether they found her today. Or at least some news yknow? To be honest with you Tim, I really don’t know what to do. I mean the minute I lay down to sleep I’m back in there again. I really hope that that’s not what you’re seeing right now. When you wake up, you’ll tell me what it was like for you yeah? Just dark or did you hear stuff, dream stuff or what? I really don’t know what to do without you Tim, I’ll tell you that. I just… ugh, this is so hard. I’m lost alright! I don’t know what to do, how I’m supposed to act or anything. We really need you hear right now, so you’d do us all a huge favour if you would just wake up. Please? No? Fine. Well I’m still gonna stay here for a few more minutes until my mom’s done with some stuff.’ And I did. I stayed in that room for 10 more minutes until my phone beeped with a message. My mom. I sighed and slowly dropped Tim’s hand. His skin was still so dry and so different to how it was before. I remembered him pulling me along when we were running from Eztli and around the mine, I remembered him catching me when I fell in the skate park the first time we met. His hand was warm then. Warm, but not dry, it was just, I don’t know, nice? I think that was the best way to describe it really. I then stood up and walked towards the door. I turned around again and looked at Tim. ‘Bye Tim, I’ll see you soon, I promise.’ Then I closed the door behind me and started towards the elevators. While the elevator was taking me back up to the main level I was thinking. About Tim, about how life was supposed to go on now. How was I supposed to go to sleep knowing what I was going to see in my dreams every night? I was so caught up in my own thoughts I wasn’t looking where I was going and crushed straight into a person coming towards me. I was close to falling, but luckily the person caught me and steadied me. I looked up and was faced with caramel-like eyes. 

‘Noah?’

‘Hey.’ ‘Hey? That’s all I get? What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were looking for Rachel Davis. Please don’t say that something went wrong.’ He looked to the side, ‘Well...’ ‘Oh no. You seem fine, so it’s Rose. Is she ok?’ ‘She’s alive. But she’s got a few injuries. She’s got a few burns and bruises and a broken shin, or at least I think that’s what the doctor’s called it.’ ‘Damn it. I- is she in one of the rooms right now?’ ‘yeah, I was just going there, I think you should go with me, we’ve got something to tell you. I mean, I should tell Ethan as well, but I’ll just call him later.’ I was confused as to why they needed to talk to me, but I followed him down the hall and into Rose’s room. She was laying on the bed, her leg in a cast and elevated. It was laid on an iron splint. Rose looked up as we entered the room and gave a small smile. ‘Hey you. How have you been? Your mind giving you any troubles?’ I looked at her with shock evident in my eyes. ‘Yeah. How did you…’ Rose shook her hand. ‘I’ve been there, I know how things go.’ I nodded and sat down on one of the chairs opposite her bed and looked at Noah. ‘So? What is it that you two have to tell me about?’ Rose and Noah then had what I would call a telepathic conversation and then turned towards me and Noah started talking. ‘Here’s the thing. We went there, to the abandoned warehouse and then split up to look for her. Everything was going well until Rachel, well, she burned the building.’ ‘She what?!’ ‘Yeah. We ran to the door of course, but in the process, a wooden board fell on top of her and I couldn’t move it at first at all. I had to break it to be able to lift it, but the thing is, when the board fell on her and beat her to the floor, her shin got broken so she couldn’t walk either. Once we got to the hospital however, Lieutenant Stone called me, and this is why we needed to talk to you.’ I looked at him confused, ‘you needed to talk to me because Stone called you?’ ‘It’s more of what he said to us. Juliet, the cops and the firefighters searched that whole place many times, but they couldn’t find her body anywhere.’

I felt like someone had just pulled the ground from underneath my feet. We were so close and yet… I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up at Noah who was looking down at me. ‘Is- is she…’ ‘We don’t know. We think she’s dead because here’s the thing Juliet. The doors were locked, there were no windows or anything she could escape through. By the time the firefighters put out the fire, enough time has passed that no body remains could be found anymore. Considering how much fire there was, for how long it took them to put it out, the temperatures in that place Juliet… this is gonna sound weird but, a human body can only withstand so much for a certain amount of time. So, I think we can say she’s dead. I know, it’s not 100% and I’m guessing you won’t be able to just accept that, but even if she isn’t dead which there’s a really small chance of, if any, we have photos which we have sent to every police and tv station and they’re going to spread it out so if she is alive, if anyone sees her anywhere, we’ll know.’ I nodded numbly and slumped down in the chair. I felt like I couldn’t breathe again, like I was drowning, like I was back in my nightmares. I tried to shake myself out of it, but it just seemed impossible. I felt a glass pushed into my hands and a voice telling me to drink it. My hands were shaking as I lifted the glass to my mouth and slowly drank the water that was in it. It wasn’t icy cold, but it wasn’t warm either, it was just the right temperature to bring me back to the real world. I put the glass back down on the bedside table and buried my head in my hands.  
I had to see Tim again. I knew I saw him just now, but there was something about him that just radiated calm. Even when it looked like the end, he knew just what to say and do to fix it all. I didn’t know how. He just did, and the only thing I knew for sure in that moment was that I had to see him again, to hold his hand, to talk to him, no matter whether he could hear me or not. What I would give to know what he was thinking right now or if he was here with me and Noah and Rose. 

\----------

Tim’s mind was blank. Or at least that was what it felt like to him. It didn’t feel like a dream, didn’t look quite like one either. It felt like his eyes were closed and as if though he was in that stage where you have to force yourself to sleep but you cant. At the same time however, he couldn’t wake up either. He couldn’t open his eyes, no matter how hard he tried. There were flashes of memories going through his mind sometimes as well. A few times he could see himself back in the mine. He was being tortured by Eztli one minute and standing in the kitchen with Juliet the next one. The most horrible flash of memories came however when Tim found himself on that table again with that woman standing above him, Rachel, or whatever it was that Eztli had called her. He tried to get rid of those flashes of memories, tried to think of his family, of his friends, of Juliet. He tried to think about the day he met her, how they were skating, how they went for ice cream afterwards. He then thought about the day that him and Juliet went swimming to the river along with the rest of their class. It was nice and Tim was having a good time. Until he wasn’t anymore. At one point he saw a few of his classmates trying to pull Juliet underwater, but he stayed where he was. It was only when Juliet didn’t come out from under the water as soon as she should’ve that he got worried. He swam over to her as quickly as he could, pulled her out and then swam back to the other classmates before anyone could even notice that he was gone. As quickly as the memory was there, it was gone again, and Tim was once again staring at the darkness behind his eyelids.

And for some time, there was all that was, only silence and darkness. Then he thought he heard a dog barking, but it soon faded, and he was drowned into the darkness again. The next time he could hear someone talking to him again, he thought the voice he heard sounded familiar, but he couldn’t hear it clearly. Then he felt pressure, he felt someone take his hand in theirs. He tried to focus so he could place the voice and his heart leaped once he finally figured out who it was; Juliet, she was there, and she was ok. So, they managed to get out of the mine after all, but how? He tried to listen to her, but his hearing just spaced out a few times, so he was left with sentences without beginnings and ends. But he heard enough to piece it all together and figure out what was going on. He had to wake up as soon as possible, but before he even realized it, everything went silent again, there was no more hand on his. 

He completely lost track of time, didn’t know how long it has been since Juliet has come to visit him or for how long he was in the hospital in the first place. The thing that irked him the most, however, was that he had no idea when Juliet would come to visit him again, he just knew that he had to hear her voice again. He had to wake up, not only because he had to see his parents and his friends again. he wanted to see Juliet’s smile again, the way her eyes used to light up whenever someone mentioned skating and swimming. The way she defended the rights for girls and why it shouldn’t be weird for them to like skateboarding and knives, but at the same time to be able to look fragile and beautiful and not get judged for it. For wanting to be strong but charming, for wearing pink and pretty dressed, but wanting to go skateboarding the next minute. To see the way that she rolled her eyes when she knew she lost an argument but didn’t want to admit it. All of those little things, he wanted to see them again, he had to.

But above it all, he had to wake up for himself. After everything he had gone through, he had to wake up. There was no way that he was going to give up, not now. Even though… at the same time there was a small voice inside his head telling him to. Because really, if there was any good time to give up, it was probably then. It was definitely difficult not to. Everything that happened, being kidnapped, tortured, cut open and now he was in a coma, and for what? Because he wanted to save some girl that he knew for so little time? It only got him in trouble so far, but deep inside he knew that that voice was wrong. Juliet and him, they’ve been through so much together, he knew he would feel selfish if he gave up. He didn’t know what they were. They were friends, sure, but were they something more? The only way he could ever figure that out however, was if he could just open his eyes, but that was easier said than done. 

The next time he came to, he heard Juliet next to him and she held his hand again and he knew that he was so close to being able to just open his eyes and seeing hers, but he felt as if all the wires between his brains and the rest of his body got cut. He listened to her talk about Noah and Rose and Ethan and Rachel and he heard when she got up and left once again.

He wanted to do something, anything, and his body was not cooperating in the slightest which was the worst of it all, really. Because it made him feel weak. When he thought back, to being in the mine, being tortured by Eztli and cut up by Rachel, he thought that those would be the worse things he would ever have to experience. But he was wrong, this was. Lying there, he was safe, no one was going to torture him, but at the same time he felt helpless. And he only ever felt that way before they moved. When he had to leave all the people and places he loved behind. He knew it wasn’t right lying to Juliet when she asked him why he came to their school, but he couldn’t tell her what really happened. He simply couldn’t find the strength in himself to tell her about a little girl he left behind, his little sister, his Emily. He tried so many times to bury any and all memories of her away, but it wasn’t that simple, it was as if though they had cemented in his mind and he could never throw them out. He remembered how they used to go out to the small driveway in front if their house and he would try to teach her how to skate. How to position her legs correctly, how to turn and how to stop, just the basics, he was afraid she’d get hurt if he showed her the more complicated things. She’d gotten hurt one time when trying to turn too sharply, she fell and scraped her knee. It was nothing major of course, but he was still worried even after he patched her up and made sure she wasn’t hurt anywhere else. How she’d always beg him to take her to the skate park, but he would always refuse, saying he’d take her when she was older. He would tell her that skate parks weren’t for little girls, even if he saw how good some of the girls at the skate park were, girls that were even younger than Emily. But he wouldn’t let her know this, he was too scared of her getting hurt. 

But the memory that he knew he could never get out of his head was when he came home from the skate park one day and found her lying on the road. His mom was next to her already, crying and holding a phone, calling an ambulance. They only found out later what had happened; she was going home from school, walking on the sidewalk, just like he always told her to. But as it turned out, no one told her friends that. Or rather, someone did, but they didn’t listen. They ran on the road, passing a football when a car came. The car was going straight at one of her classmates, but they didn’t see or hear it, only Emily did. She ran to them to pull them off the road and to the sidewalk, the car swerved to try to avoid hitting her classmates, but in the chaos that was present, it hit Emily instead. The car stopped of course, but it was too late. She tried to help her friends and she died because of it. Tim regretted a lot of things that day, he felt guilty. Guilty for going to the skatepark instead of walking her home like he sometimes would, but more than that he felt guilty for not spending more time with her when she asked him to, for not taking her to the skatepark, showing her tricks and how to perfect them, because she could be great at it, she had talent, he knew that. From then on, he never told anyone about Emily, about the talented seven-year-old girl that he had to leave behind. He hid all the pain behind smirks, jokes, laughter, and skateboard tricks, it was the only thing that reminded him of her. 

Tim tried to push those thoughts away, but at the same time, he realised something. She would want him to fight, with everything he had, because she thought that he was amazing and invincible, even where there were moments where everything seemed lost, she believed that he could somehow fix it.   
Tim tried to push all of those thoughts away and tried to focus on her. On Emily. On the way her eyes shined when she managed to skate well for the first time, and brake and turn just like him. He focused on all those happy memories, going home from school together, her telling him about what she saw and how she beat all of her boy classmates at climbing, him making her a snack, her favourite sandwich, with butter and jelly and a glass of orange juice after it. How they used to watch skating competitions before her bed time and her telling him that she was sure he could do all the tricks the performers aced. How they spent all that time together, either skating, climbing, watching tv, or just talking nonsense. He focused on how she told him ‘you can do it’ before his local skating competition. He focused on her little voice saying that over and over again in his mind.

And then, Juliet came to his room again and held his hand. And she said ‘Hey Tim.’ The way she did so many times before, but this time, her voice broke at the end. At that moment, everything seemed so easy to him. So, he did the one thing that until then seemed like the hardest thing in the world. He focused on Emily’s little voice inside his mind, the voice saying, ‘you can do it’ and did the thing he thought was impossible until then. 

He opened his eyes.


	17. The red circles on white shirts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say, I don't know a whole of a lot about the way the court and trials work, so please don't reference or judge me on those parts, other than that, enjoy and tell me what you think of it in the comments.

His brown eyes were staring into mine. I remembered when I thought that I didn’t know when I’d see those eyes locking with mine. I thought about that ever since we got separated at the mine. And now when I was actually staring into his eyes again, seeing my reflection in his pupils, it all seemed unreal in a way-unreal in a way that made me feel the way I felt after waking up from a nightmare of the mine and Eztli. It felt like all of the air had been sucked out of me again, I was lost, not knowing where I was for a minute, only this time, something was different. This time there was warmth as well. The kind of warmth that I could never associate with the mine. It was the kind of warmth you feel when you hug a friend that you haven’t seen in what feels like forever. The feeling of safety and just genuine happiness. It was the kind of feeling that you would want to bottle up and get high on every single day when things just seem like too much.

I was sitting there, not even realizing the fact that we were still looking into each other’s eyes. I blinked and came out of my trance. As soon as I did, I surged forward and hugged him as tight as I could, or at least as much as all of the tubes attached to him let me. I could feel his hands on my back, but they were weak, and it was obvious he was struggling to hug me back. I slowly pulled back but still left my arms resting on his. He looked at me and I could see that he was shocked as well and as much as I wanted to talk to him and never stop, I knew that the doctors had to check on him. The last thing I wanted was for him to go into a come again. I looked at him again, ‘You have no idea how glad I am to see you again, but I have to go call the doctor now, they have to do a full body check up on you, just to be sure.’ He smiled and then nodded, it was obvious he was very tired, which was not surprising at all considering all that he went through. I stood up despite the fact that I wanted to stay by his side forever, just talking to him, with him, our eyes locked and never looking away.

I know, it sounds cheesy and made up, but here’s the thing; you never really realize how much you miss and value something until it gets taken away. Which to me is one of the cruellest things in the world. Not realizing how much you love something until it gets taken from you. I never knew how much I’d miss something so simple as looking at someone’s eyes, but I did. I missed it so much and it was horrible that I couldn’t have it. Now I knew of course, but before… I never thought about what I would be like if I would never get to see Harry’s eyes, or my mom’s, or my dad’s. And now Tim’s and Ethan’s as well. Every single person’s eyes are so beautiful and so unique and even though I realized it quite lately, looking at someone’s eyes, it’s like you’re having a conversation without saying a word. You have to look at people’s eyes, not only because you will see the truth in them, but also because you never know when you might lose that. 

I shook my head and forced myself to come back down to earth, reminding myself I had to tell doctor about Tim and his current state. I walked towards the information desk that was a few metres down the hall. Luckily, there was a nurse there filling out some papers, but she looked up and put the papers down when she heard me stop in front of the desk. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’ she asked me, and I nodded numbly, I still felt as if I didn’t fully comprehend the fact that really woke up. ‘Yeah, I-uh, Tim woke up from the come and-‘ she abruptly stood up and turned around to knock on the door behind her, and the doctor that checked up on me and Ethan when we arrived came out of the room. ‘Yes?’ ‘The boy that came in the other day and was in a come? He woke up.’ His eyes widened when he heard what the nurse had said and immediately closed the door behind him and hurried towards Tim’s room with the nurse right behind him. Tim was lying in bed and for a moment I got scared that he was in the coma again or even worse, that I only imagined he woke up. But when I stepped in, I could see Tim’s eyes were still open and I felt at least a bit better. The doctor, whose name tag read Dr Bram Ruiz walked around Tim’s bed and then stopped at the head of the bed. He offered him his hand and introduced himself, ‘Hello Tim, my name is Bram and right now I’m going to have to do a few tests on you, just to be sure you’re alright. Can you nod if you understood that?’ Tim nodded and Dr Ruiz smiled slightly. I stood at the door and I didn’t even realize I started chewing my nails, it was something that I stopped doing years ago, but whenever something really stressful happened, I was back at it, and I would say that now was a pretty good excuse. I watched as Dr Ruiz told Tim to try to raise his arms, follow his finger with his eyes, react to pain and to communicate with him as well. I tried to stay as calm as I could, but that turned out to be easier said than done. I decided to look at the nature, at the events unravelling outside of the hospital window. I looked at the nature, at the playground, at the kids that were playing with their friends and parents. And how I wished I would be out there rather than stuck in here, with Tim, skating the day away. 

I looked back at Tim and could see that they were finishing up with the tests already. I could see Tim looking at me out of the corner of his eye, so I walked over and sat down on the same chair I always did when visiting him. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I let them fall to my lap but fidgeted with the hem of my shirt still. I looked up at Dr Ruiz once I heard him talking to the nurse about Tim. ‘Alright, we did a few of the usual tests, responsiveness, conscience, those kinds of things. But the thing is, Tim’s body is still fairly weak, which is understandable considering he’s not only been in a coma, but also had one of his organs taken from him, the stress that he endured while being kidnapped… all of that leaves effects on a person’s body, and it’s going to take some time for him to heal. Therefore, he will need to stay in the hospital for at least two more weeks. I do realize that you have a trial coming up in a few days, but there is absolutely no way that Tim could attend it, at least not in person, not when his health is at such a risk as it is at the moment.’ I nodded and could see Tim doing the same. I understood that, of course I did, we couldn’t just risk it all. Tim could still attend the trial via Skype or something similar to that. I leaned back in my chair as the doctor and the nurse left with a few more instructions for Tim and saying that they’ll do more tests on him later. Tim turned his head on his pillow so he could look at me. ‘Juliet? What was the doctor talking about? What trial?’ I exhaled slowly and looked at him, the trial, it was a subject I wanted to avoid talking about as much as possible. ‘I-yeah. Here’s the thing. First of all, I need to tell you something and it’s terrifying and shocking and there’s really no words to describe it so… I’m just going to say it. But you have to know that I’m here if you need me alright?’ I saw him nod, confusion clouding his eyes.

I took a deep breath and looked at him again. ‘Noah and Rose, his friend from the academy, went to look for Dr Rachel Davis. They found her, but the building she was hiding in burned up. She did it herself. The problem is, they couldn’t find her body, anywhere. They looked everywhere Tim, they really did, but Noah said that at a temperature as high as that not even a person’s bones could stay intact, not to even talk about the chances of survival. They aren’t just one to a million, there is an absolute zero chance of surviving something like that. All of the windows and doors were closed, they say that there is no way she could’ve escaped. She is currently presumed dead.’ I closed my eyes for a moment and then opened them again. I was almost afraid to see Tim’s reaction to the news, I knew I took it pretty badly, but I barely had any interaction at all with Dr Davis, while Tim… I glanced at him and saw that his eyes were glazed over, and he was staring at nothing. His hands were still at first but then they started shaking and grabbing at the sheets trying to get a grip but failing. I quickly stood up, kneeled next to the bed, and took his hands in mine. ‘Hey, Tim, I’m here, look at me, please, Tim? Can you hear me?’ his hands were cold, and I could feel him shaking but he somehow still managed to turn his head and look at me. ‘Presumed dead? That-that means that they’re not sure whether she’s dead or alive?’ ‘No, they don’t. But like I said, there is a zero chance she could’ve survived in that building. If she did escape, which is also highly unlikely, they have cops looking for her all over the country, at the borders, they had her photo sent out to the media so if anyone sees her, they’ll know.’ Tim nodded again, but I could see that his mind was still currently a mess.

Before I could say anything else however, the door of Tim’s hospital room opened, and Noah walked in. Tim and I both looked up at him as he neared the bed and then smiled at Tim. ‘Hi. My name is Noah Cohen, I’m a police officer and I worked one of the cases of the disappearances caused by your kidnapper. I don’t know how much Juliet has told you about the investigation so far, but we have a trial in court in two days when Eztli’s punishment will be decided. I just wanted to say that I’m really glad to hear you’re better and to thank you for all the evidence you have provided us with. It will help us a great deal in court.’ This time a small smile crossed Tim’s face and stayed on there for more than two seconds, ‘of course. I know you know who I am already, but still, my name’s Tim, it’s nice to meet you.’ ‘nice to meet you too. Listen, I talked it over with the judge and my boss and they both said that you can attend the trial via a video conference. You’d still be in your room, a cop and a lawyer would be with you in here, so you would be safe. You ok with that?’ Tim nodded. ‘yeah I’m good with that. You’re pretty nice for a cop, by the way, most of the cops I met were pretty grouchy and always serious.’ Noah chuckled a bit at that. ‘Yeah, some of them do tend to be like that sometimes, speaking of grouchy cops, Stone said that we have to be at the court at two o’clock in the afternoon. It’s two hours before the trial starts, we’ll go over all the technicalities, talk with our lawyers, all of that.’ I nodded distractedly my mind already helpfully supplying me with scenarios of how things could go wrong. My mind was very inconsiderate, and I wanted it to stop, but unfortunately, not an option. I decided to ignore it for now and focus on the matter at hand. I looked at Noah and asked him if Rose will attend the trial as well, considering how badly she was injured on their search for Dr Davis. ‘She’ll be there. Luckily, the doctor said that she’s allowed to leave to go to the court. However, she will have to be on a wheelchair, cause she isn’t allowed to step on her injured leg for quite some time. But she’ll be there.’ ‘Good. So, two pm at the court on Wednesday then?’ ‘Yeah. Your parents are allowed to come with you as well, Ethan said that his will be him too, which, considering he’s been missing for a month is no surprise.’ I agreed with him, I understood the situation completely. My parents were protective even before I got kidnapped but now… and Ethan has been missing for a month, it’s quite obvious that his parents weren’t going to just let him out of their sight for some time now, all of the trauma probably still fresh in their heads. 

When I thought about Ethan’s parents, I remembered my mom. She was probably all done with shopping and she did say to call her once I’m done with everything at the hospital. If it were my way I’d just stay there and talk to Tim, Noah and Rose, but I knew that I had to go home and be with my parents. Dr Ruiz also said that it would be good if Tim got some rest and ate some food, just because he was in a coma didn’t mean he wasn’t tired or hungry, so I decided to give my mom a call and ask her to come pick me up. Noah took the other chair that was available in the room and sat down next to Tim’s bed. ‘I know you’re probably really tired now Tim, but could you answer a few questions for me? I promise I’ll be as fast as possible.’ ‘Yeah, I can do that, I think. Are you gonna go home now, Juliet?’ I avoided his eyes at first, but then remembered what I was thinking of before, of how I could lose a chance to look at someone’s eyes and not even realize how much I would miss it. So, I turned towards him and my blue eyes met his troubled browns again. ‘Yeah. Believe me, I’d rather not, but my parents… and you need to rest a bit too.’ He smirked slightly, ‘oh how nice of you Juliet, worrying about me, I’m flattered.’ I rolled my eyes, but smiled, nevertheless. ‘Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that. Get better alright? I’ll see you soon and if you need me, just call. Oh, and Noah? Tell Rose I say hi and wish her to get better too’. They both nodded and then said, ‘Will do.’ At the same time. They then looked at each other and high-fived. Noah grinned, ‘Well then Tim, I believe we are going to be great friends.’ ‘I believe so too.’ I grinned upon looking at the scene unravelling in front of me. I was right, they did get along great. ‘Alright, I’m going to go now, see you on Wednesday.’ Noah waved, ‘See you’. I opened the doors and walked towards the elevators while texting my mom to come and get me while waiting for the elevator. These were going to be two long days. 

Once I stepped out of the hospital my mom was already waiting for me, so I walked towards the car and we drove home. As soon as I entered the house, I knew that the next two days were going to drag on like never before. And look, I usually love it when I’m right but right now? What I would give to be wrong about the fact that the two days would drag on to no end. They were spent with me mindlessly walking from one room to another, like a routine, robot-like. Sit at the table, eat my meals, stand up, do the dishes, go to my room, scroll through my phone or laptop, and then wait until I fall asleep. And then repeat it again. It may not sound long or boring, but it was. And I was so sick of it I almost wished the day for the trial would come sooner. Almost. Because every time I closed my eyes I could still see Eztli and Dr Davis and Tim lying on the table. And even the thought of having to face Eztli again, it terrified me, and in moments like those I wished those two days would never end. But I knew they would, and I knew we would have to face him again and put him somewhere where he won’t be able to hurt anyone ever again. Noah said that Eztli wasn’t going to be facing the death row because he helped with the investigation, but we still had to put him away. And no matter how afraid I was of all of it; of seeing him again, of getting another panic attack, of something going terribly wrong, I still wanted to do it. I still wanted to help. Not just because it was the right thing, no matter how movie-like that sounds, but also because I didn’t want anyone to get hurt the way Ethan, Tim or I were ever again. 

So, I spent most of the day in my room, going through court rules and such because if I’m going to have to be there, well, I might as well get there prepared, right? There were so many rules and some proceedings sounded so complicated it made my head spin, but I forced myself to read on. I wanted to know as much as possible and before I knew it, I was asleep, my laptop still opened on my stomach. Surprisingly, it turned out to be the one day when I didn’t have nightmares of the mine. It was one of the best nights’ sleep I had in a while if I don’t count the fact that I feel asleep with my laptop on me. The next day dragged on as well of course, but I somehow found the energy to eat go through the day as I normally would, except with the fact of reading up more on police investigations processes and such. Once I fell asleep that day, the nightmares were back, I expected them, but it all still hit me pretty hard. I was shaking, waking up every half hour and then being afraid to fall asleep again because I know what I would see if I did. I was extremely thankful that the trial was scheduled in the afternoon because that way, I was able to at least get some of my energy back. I don’t know how I could get through it if the trial was in the morning. My dad even let me go for a walk in the park, of course under the condition he went with me, but I didn’t even care that he did, I just wanted to go outside, breath some fresh air, and if my dad was with me, I only felt safer.

And then before I knew it, the clock on the wall showed a quarter to two and it was time to go. I was told to dress a bit more formal, but not to exaggerate, so I decided to go with some grey jeans, a black shirt and a black and white camo patterned light jacket. I had my black Puma shoes on as well, I was dressed alright, but I was still feeling horribly nervous. I drove there with my mom and my dad and I was biting my nails the whole way, no surprise there. Once we arrived at the court parking lot, Noah was already there with Ethan on his right and Rose on his left. We walked closer and I quickly greeted Noah and Rose and then turned to Ethan who looked even more nervous than me. ‘Hey. How are you feeling?’ Ethan ran a hand through his hair and then looked at me, ‘I don’t know. I have no idea how a person is supposed to feel in a situation like this. I mean, it’s not everyday you have to face your kidnapper in court, but for that kidnapper to also be your long-lost brother… it’s a mess. Honestly, I’m terrified. I’m afraid of how I’m going to react when I see him again, I know he’s my brother and that’s supposed to mean something, because, you know, we’re blood, we’re family, but I don’t know. It sometimes feels like there’s more to it than that.’ I nodded, ‘There is. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my family, truly, I do, but there was a time when I didn’t get along with them all that great. In those moments, I was closer to my friends than to my family, still am sometimes. People don’t need to be blood to be family, and just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you have to get along with them and stand with them no matter what they did. It’s understandable, especially in your case.’ ‘Yeah. It’s just a mess, you know? I’m afraid of my own brother, that shouldn’t be a thing. You should get along with your siblings, sure, sometimes you wanna kill them but, not like this, not literally.’ I cracked a smile at that, trust Ethan to make a joke out of a serious situation. ‘Yeah well, just know that through this whole mess, you’re not alone, alright? You’ve got me, you’ve got Noah, you’ve got your parents, I know you haven’t met Tim yet, but you’d probably get along pretty well too.’ He finally smiled a bit. ‘Thanks Jules.’ ‘Anytime.’ We turned to look at Noah, who was talking to someone on his phone and then pocketed it. ‘You guys feeling alright?’ Ethan and I looked at each other and I knew that Noah could see the doubt, worry and fear in our eyes, but we nodded, nevertheless. His eyes flew over us again and then he nodded as well. ‘Ok then, let’s go, Stone is already waiting for us in the meeting room with the lawyer.’ He then turned around and pushed Rose, who was sitting in her wheelchair to the door of the court building and we followed him. The building was huge, with marble floors that looked as clean as glass and resonated our steps. After about five minutes, we arrived at a room and upon entering it, we found lieutenant Stone talking to a woman dressed in a black and white suit. She had shoulder length red hair that were tied up into a fancy-looking fish braid that laid on her shoulders. She had green eyes and full lips, and she was wearing very little make up, if any. When they heard us, they turned around and Stone’s eyes flew over us and he then spoke up, ‘Let’s do this.’

First, the lawyer introduced herself and I found out her name was Heather Hobbs, which sounded familiar to me at first and then I remembered that she was on the tv a few times, defending the victims of child abuse. I was glad she was on our side, I remembered watching a clip of her in the court room and I would absolutely not want to be on the opposite side of her. She talked us through the process that was going to go down in the court room. First with bringing Eztli from holding then stating the evidence and our goal, or, as she stated it, Eztli’s sentence that we wanted to reach. She explained to us what we would have to do as well, which was answer the questions we will be asked by both Heather and Eztli’s lawyer. We all got tried to get ready for what was about to come, but I was still just as terrified, and I could see that Ethan was too. Heather was then talking about a few things with my parents as well as Ethan’s. They seemed like really nice people and you could see that they loved Ethan to bits. Once the clock struck a quarter to four, we had to move to the court room, since the trial would start at four. Ethan and I hesitantly stood up; we were both more nervous than we’d ever admit. Noah then showed up at our side and looked at both of us again and then his eyes stopped on Ethan, ‘Are you sure you’re going to be ok?’ ‘No, I’m not, but I’ll improvise.’ ‘You can’t improvise being ok, Ethan.’ ‘Sure I can.’ Noah just chuckled ‘I’m never gonna win this am I?’ Ethan just shook his head grinning. I wasn’t sure if they even realized it, but somehow, during their argument, their fingers locked together, and I could see Noah running his thumb soothingly over the back of Ethan’s palm. When I looked at Ethan I could see he was more relaxed and even smiling a bit, even though the nervousness was still present in his eyes. 

With every step we took closer to the court room, more nervous I got. My mom was standing by my side, my dad was walking behind me, and I knew it wasn’t much, but I felt safer with them there. Once we entered the court room it was like everything became muted and time slowed down. It was like everything I was seeing was inside someone else’s mind. Some other girl was watching as Eztli was brought into the room, sat in a chair, with his hands cuffed and some other girl felt immense fear and hate for that person. Some other girl was listening to Heather give the opening statements, tell them what sentence she was aiming for. Some other girl was called up to the stand to give her statements, to relive the horror story that she endured. She watched as the lawyer of the man she hated tried to defend him by saying it was all a side effect from the medication he was on, the things that he had to suffer through in his childhood and early teenage years. She listened to them talk back, looked at the photos that were taken at the place of her nightmares and it didn’t seem to end. She listened to her friends give statements, she saw the worry and the fear in their eyes, but there was something else as well. There was determination. The want and the will to win, to get rid of the person standing in front of them, dressed in the colorful clothes, but looking like death. 

And then suddenly, it was over, the judge pronounced the person in front of them guilty and sentenced to a life in prison, with monthly visits of the prison therapist. In that moment I was me again and looking at everything from my perspective. I looked at Ethan who looked relived but still shocked above it all, I looked at my parents, who were finally smiling, despite the worry still present in their eyes. I looked around myself and saw the court room emptying, the people were leaving to go back home. The only people left were our families, Noah, Rose, Stone, Eztli and 4 other cops. 2 of them were standing on either side of Eztli and two were stood at the court room door. We started walking towards the doors, we almost opened them, the two of the other cops next to us, when suddenly, there was a shout and then two loud shots followed right after. We all turned around and what I saw made my blood run cold all over again.

There, at the other side of the court room, barely 10 metres away from us, stood Eztli, with a police gun in his hand, the two cops that were standing at his side before were now laying on the ground, pools of blood starting to spread around their heads. Eztli’s eyes were shining dangerously again as he took a step over the bodies on the floor and towards us. I could hear Stone moving behind me and then a thud next to me. He was lying on the floor, a shot wound piercing his leg. ‘Well, well, now, we can’t just have him pulling a gun on me now can we?’ Eztli’s voice got bounced off the marble walls and I felt paralyzed. Before I knew it, Ethan was holding a gun in his hands as well and at first I wondered where he got it from but then I saw Noah standing in front of him and turned slightly to the right, his gun holster empty. Eztli just grinned. ‘Come on now Ethan, surely you won’t shoot me, will you? I’m your brother, we’re family.’ Ethan’s hands were shaking but I could see his finger on the trigger. Then, before I could even blink, three things happened at once. Eztli aimed at Ethan, the words ‘see you soon little brother’ whispered but still loud enough to be heard, Ethan aimed at Eztli and the minute they both pressed the triggers, Noah moved. 

The next thing I realized was Eztli laying on the ground and Noah standing in front of Ethan, his right hand on Ethan’s face and his left on his own stomach. ‘Are you-Ethan, are you alright?’ he nodded numbly and then looked at Noah ‘I’m ok but I don’t understand, I saw him shoot, I saw-‘ Noah then raised his left hand as well and ran it through his hair. Leaving read smudges in his wake. Ethan seemed to come to the realization of what was happening and grabbed Noah’s hands. ‘Noah, you’re-you’re bleeding!’ he looked down at his stomach, a red circle already forming on his white uniform shirt.  
In the next second he collapsed on the ground and Ethan dropped down with him. All I could see was Noah’s body on the floor and all I could hear were Ethan’s screams echoing off the court room walls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot to mention, i'm also on tumblr under the name iwastemytimereading1, come say hi


	18. The future? Probably

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... this is finally the end. I have to say it does feel weird posting the last chapter after... 3 years of writing this, but here it is. thank you to anyone who read it up to this point. hope you enjoyed it!

I was pacing, my thoughts swirling inside my head and my heart in my throat. The last hour felt like one nightmare after another. Seeing Eztli lying on the floor was just the beginning of the horror that my day has turned into. But seeing the smudges of red on Noah’s hair and the circle of blood forming on his shirt, it was simply too much, because just as it seemed as if though everything was returning back to normal, only for something like that to happen, it truly felt like some cosmic deity had something against us. The minute I tried to shut my eyes to look away from Eztli’s body and Noah lying on the floor with Ethan trying to shake him awake, I could hear Ethan’s cries again and I knew that would become another memory for my nightmares to feed on, just to keep me awake.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Ethan was going through and I had no idea how to help no matter how badly I wanted to. I walked towards the room that Noah was being held in after the surgery and noticed Ethan slumped in a chair, his eyes red rimmed and his lips bleeding in a few places. I sat down next to him and looked towards the bed that Noah was sleeping on. He was alright, the doctors said so themselves, but he needed his rest and they told us that we could come and see him, but only if we would let him sleep. I put my hand on Ethan’s shoulder and he turned towards me and leaned slightly into the touch, I could feel him shaking, trying to hold back the tears. I stood up and wordlessly pulled him into the hug, feeling him burry his nose in the crook of my neck, sobs shaking his body, his arms around my neck and mine around his waist. Once the sobs have quieted down and he was only shaking, I urged him to breathe with me, like Noah had advised me to do during the attack. Ethan had gradually calmed down, but I could still see the panic and the worry in his eyes. He hung onto me for a few more moments before letting go and sitting back down, trying to look at me, but I could still see his eyes flickering over to Noah. I looked at Ethan and saw him biting his nails, and under different circumstances I would tell him to stop, but I knew that he needed a distraction, even if it created pain. He turned in his chair, angled his body towards mine, even if just so he didn’t have to look at the man lying on the bed, not knowing how he was.

I tried to catch his eyes, but it was obvious he didn’t want that. He kept looking out the window, giving up on biting his nails and instead dropped his hands in his lap, picking at his skin. I felt it necessary to start the conversation, because it was obvious he wouldn’t, even if he had something to talk about ‘What is it? You know I’m here if you want to talk right?’ he nodded, his eyes still avoiding mine, and I could see that he was trying to find the right words. He opened his mouth and then closed it again, but he finally gathered the courage to speak up. ‘I- I need to tell you something, I have no idea how you’ll react, or I have a bit of an idea, but… I just need to get it out of my system, and I feel like you’d be the only one that could really understand this right now.’ I merely nodded, knowing better than to interrupt him, it wouldn’t do well for him if I did. He took a deep breath and then started again, ‘When I saw Noah in front of me, in that courtroom, in the first second, when he asked me if I was ok, with his hand on my cheek and his eyes full of worry, for a moment, just for a moment, I let myself believe that everything was alright. Aar-Eztli was dead, and as much as I didn’t want that to happen, as much as I know that’s going to haunt my dreams, I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else, it was as simple as that, really. But then Noah ran a hand through his hair, and I saw the blood and when he fell down, I couldn’t believe it, the fact that it still wasn’t over, the fact that even after everything we’ve been through, this still wasn’t the end. In that moment, I don’t know what I was feeling, but mostly just emptiness and such desperation and sadness, and I couldn’t handle it and I don’t know if I can ever feel that way again and be fine and walk away from it. Because I’ve felt that way too many times in my life to get over it again. What I’m trying to say here Juliet, and failing so badly at it too, is, I know I’ve only known him for less than a week and all that, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like so much more. Maybe it was because he was the leading detective on my case or something, I don’t know, but I…’ he took a deep breath again, his eyes flickered to Noah again and then back to me. ‘I like him. Like, really like him, and I know you’ll probably call me crazy or something or, say I shouldn’t, or I don’t know what else. And I know that if Stone found out it wouldn’t be good, at all. But I can’t get rid of the feeling and it’s suffocating me in a way, and I know I probably won’t ever tell him because of his job and because, I don’t know, I don’t know what to do anymore, how to continue anymore, I’ll probably just say goodbye to him like a normal person would and wait for it all to go away. It usually works so… alright that’s it from my side. Please say something Jules?’

I blinked and tried to take it all in. Not the fact that Ethan liked Noah, I knew that the day they met each other, what surprised me more was that Ethan didn’t or couldn’t see how hopelessly in love Noah was with him. But I understood where he was coming from, especially the part with Stone and not being able to handle something like that again. His life had been hard enough as it was, but now this as well… I shook my head, trying to form a coherent sentence. ‘I’ve got a few things to say. First of all: I know you like Noah. I knew it pretty much since the very beginning, the way you looked at him and just every moment you spent around each other, you were happier, both of you. Second of all: lieutenant Stone. I- look, I’m not even going to pretend I like him or know him, because I don’t. he played a part in saving us and for that I’ll be grateful. But his worldview may not be the best, I definitely agree with you there. The problem with him is you just can’t change some people’s minds. The only thing you can do is try and educate them, or introduce them to things they didn’t know about, try to show them the world in a way you see it. And sometimes it’s one of the hardest things in the world; changing someone’s mind, their perspective of things. It’s the way they grew up, the way they were thought and sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can’t change that. And I really don’t know how to solve that problem. Maybe talk with Noah once he wakes up? Ask him if he’s got any ideas on the issue? As for the third thing. I can’t even begin to understand what you’re going through right now, but I know what it was like to see Noah lying on the floor like that, no idea what will happen to him. That I understand. And not being able to see something like that again and just be ok because people might expect you to be? No one, and I mean no one, has any right to tell you what you can and cannot feel or how you should act when something like this happens. Because no one is ready for something like this to happen to them. It’s not something you just learn in school. No one can prepare you for something like this. But one thing I do know? Noah likes you and he cares about you, more than you know. Hell probably more than he knows himself. I only see one solution here. Tell him. I know. I know it’s scary and terrifying and not knowing what his reaction might be is even scarier. But you have a right to try. Everyone does. And above that, and above all else, you deserve to be happy. You know this, even if you might not want to admit it to yourself. After everything, you deserve to be happy. So, this is my advice to you: talk to him. You just might be surprised with what you’ll find out. And if you ever need me, I’m just a phone call away.’ I got up, squeezed his hand and then left the room, with a silent goodbye to Noah.

I closed the door behind me and headed towards Rose who was sitting in her wheelchair in the hallway. She smirked at me and raised her eyebrows as I sat down next to her. ‘So?’ I looked at her confused. ‘So, what?’ she rolled her eyes and looked towards Noah’s room. ‘So, did they get together yet?’ I chuckled, so I wasn’t the only one that noticed all the not-so-subtle touches and heart eyes between the two of them then. I shook my head as I looked towards Noah’s room again. ‘Nah, not yet.’ She groaned at that, ‘But Ethan at least realized he likes him, I’m calling that an improvement’ I continued and settled more comfortably in my chair. This is probably going to last a while. I was already at Tim’s room and he was doing better than two days ago. They said he is going to be allowed to go home in a week and a half and I was happy to hear that, as was he. As for Ethan and Noah… I had no idea how they were going to sort out the things between them, but I knew they were going to be alright.  
\---

Ethan was sitting next to Noah’s bed when he heard a groan coming from his right and whipped his head so fast he was pretty sure he could’ve broken his neck. He got up slowly however, he still didn’t want to scare Noah or make him move too much, he didn’t know how bad his injuries were exactly. He moved so that he was half standing, half kneeling next to his bed, when Noah finally opened his eyes and looked at him and Ethan got reminded once again how much he loved to look into Noah’s eyes. Caramel orbs with little flickers of gold if the sun shined into them just right. And not just the colours, he missed seeing the feelings in Noah’s eyes as well. The way his eyes lit up when he smiled and laughed and darkened when provoked or angry. Right now, Noah’s eyes had confusion, with a bit of worry and… fondness? Ethan didn’t know what to call the last emotion displaying in Noah’s eyes, but he knew he was happy to see him awake again. Noah’s eyelids then fluttered, and he raised himself up, his fingertips brushing against Ethan’s cheeck, which left Ethan’s whole face feeling as if though it was on fire. ‘Hey’ his voice was a bit deeper than it usually was, a bit more gravely too, but he signed that up to the fact that he’d been sleeping for some time, and injuries aren’t the best factor either. Ethan cleared his throat, pulling his chair closer and sitting down again. ‘Hey. How are you feeling?’ he kept his voice soft, he told himself it was because Noah was still hurt but he knew that he couldn’t talk to him any other way even if he tried to. Noah shrugged, looking at his stomach where Ethan knew the wound was, and then back at him. ‘I’ve been better. But at least I kept my promise right? I told you I’d never let anything happen to you ever again’ Ethan felt his heart in his throat, and he knew his eyes weren’t as kind as before. 

‘Don’t you ever do that ever again.’ he managed to croak out and Noah looked at him, still with a slight smile on his face, ‘Do what? Keep my promises?’ Ethan stood up and turned his back on him. ‘You know damn well what I mean Noah, don’t get shot again, this isn’t a joke, alright.’ He turned around and saw that the smile slipped off of Noah’s face, replaced by a serious look, his eyes somehow soft and hard at the same time. ‘You know I can’t promise you that Ethan.’ ‘Oh yeah? And why not?’ Noah had gotten out from under the covers by now and was sitting at the edge of the bed, his eyes sad and angry. Ethan knew that Noah was given some painkillers, but it still couldn’t be comfortable for him to just sit up by himself like that. ‘Because Ethan, it’s my job, don’t you understand? It’s my job to protect people, to protect civilians.’ ‘Even if it means you get hurt because of that?’ Noah nodded sadly, but Ethan could still see some of that fire inside his eyes. ‘Even then. When I decided to work this job, to become a policeman, I knew the risks, but if it means that at the end of the day I saved someone, it means that it was worth it.’ Ethan knew he was getting angry, but he was past the point of caring, ‘Oh, so a civilian, that’s all I am to you?’ 

Noah furrowed his eyebrows ‘I, what-‘ ‘Noah, look, I- I can’t-‘ Ethan knew his voice was breaking but he just couldn’t stop, ‘I can’t see you get hurt again alright, I can’t just watch tv one day and hear your name being mentioned as one of the casualties, I can’t…’ he felt a gentle tug at his wrist and he turned around towards Noah again who slowly stood up and Ethan was just about to tell him to sit back down because it was obvious he was still in pain, his injury wasn’t healed yet, he couldn’t just, but then he felt Noah’s palm on his chin, forcing him to look into his eyes again and Ethan almost wished he didn’t because there was so much fondness there, mixed with a bit of sadness and something else he couldn’t quite decipher and he found himself unable to look away. ‘Ethan, I- you are so much more than just a civilian to me’ and then Noah’s lips were on his and it was his hands tangling into Noah’s hair, and he could feel Noah’s other hand on his waist and-and then suddenly Noah moved away with a sharp ‘Shit! Ethan-I- I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t…’ but Ethan just shook his head, tears blurring his vision slightly and pulled Noah in again, teeth clashing and noses bumping, and he knew he never wanted to stop. Not with the way Noah’s hands were wrapped around his waist, breathing into his mouth and somehow taking Ethan’s breath away at the same time. But then he heard Noah whimper slightly and he gently broke the kiss, their foreheads still resting together, and Ethan could feel the puffs of air that were coming from Noah’s mouth on his own lips. He gently pecked his lips once more and then tried to sit him down in a way that would cause the least pain to Noah’s wounded area. Once he was finally sitting on the bed again, Ethan closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them to see Noah looking up at him, a slight smile on his kiss-swollen lips and he watched as Noah licked them slowly and winked at him. Ethan knew he was blushing, but he didn’t care, because he finally got to do what he has been wanting to ever since he met Noah and he didn’t regret it, not a single thing. He then took Noah’s hand in his and brushed some of his hair back off his forehead, his eyes again in full view. ‘You should lay down you know. It’s not healthy for you to be sitting and standing up and doing… other things.’ Noah chuckled but still lowered himself back down on the bed, pulling the covers over him and turning his head towards Ethan again. ‘So… That just happened.’ Ethan rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, letting go of Noah’s hand so he was able to adjust his pillow. ‘Yeah. Juliet is gonna be happy.’ Noah smirked when he heard that and looked to the door and then back to Ethan. ‘She knew, didn’t she?’ Ethan rubbed the back of his neck and lowered his head for a moment, ‘The whole time actually.’ Noah laughed slightly but then Ethan remembered something. ‘Stone, he, I don’t think he’ll be as happy though.’ Noah just shook his head, now serious, ‘No. But you know what? Screw him. I know the whole police squad by now and most of them are pretty accepting, even those that are in higher positions than Stone. So, screw him and everyone else that has anything against it, because quite frankly, I don’t care.’ Ethan smiled at him, ‘I really like you.’ Noah chuckled again. ‘Really? Because you know, I couldn’t quite figure it out whether it was gay in here or if it was just me. But turns out, it’s you too.’ He had a smirk on his lips and Ethan couldn’t help but groan and bury his head in his hands ‘Oh my god Noah, that was terrible.’ 

He wanted to laugh but just then the door opened, Stone coming in and looking at the two with a slightly judgemental look on his face, eyes flying from one to the other as if they were suspects in court. He was leaning on a pair of crutches, one of his legs bandaged. His wound wasn’t as bad as Noah’s, but it still needed treatment. Ethan schooled his expression into a serious one but could see that Noah had a bit more trouble trying to get rid of the smile on his face and the sparkle in his eyes. ‘I see you are awake.’ Noah nodded, gesturing to the place the bullet pierced his skin just hours ago, ‘Yeah, turns out I just needed some rest and a lot of painkillers. And surgical help of course.’ Lieutenant Stone nodded at that, completely ignoring Ethan, who rolled his eyes and looked out of the window instead. ‘Of course. I talked to some of the others back at the stations, they said they can have our shifts covered with no trouble, but the two of us have to stay at home until we get better. No work, no sports, no nothing. Understand?’ Noah nodded curtly and crossed his arms, ‘Understood.’ ‘Good. Also, you’ve got visitors.’ Noah raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Stone just opened the door and then left after Juliet came in, pushing Rose that was in her wheelchair. 

I got into the room, wheeling Rose next to Noah’s bed and sat down in the unoccupied chair. I looked between Noah and Ethan, but they refused to say anything, so I sighed and looked at Ethan first and then at Noah. ‘So… Noah, you’re awake, how are you feeling?’ he chuckled and looked at Ethan who was blushing slightly. ‘I’m feeling pretty good actually. Got some painkillers, had a good nap… Just ask what you want to ask Juliet, c’mon.’ I blinked a few times and then grinned. ‘Ethan? Did you tell him?’ he kept looking at the ground until Noah nudged him a bit that he started talking. ‘Alright, alright. I didn’t, erm, I didn’t tell him, per se because he kind of, um… interrupted me?’ Rose laughed next to me, her eyes directed at Noah. ‘Wait Noey, did you-did you kiss him while he was pouring his heart out?’ Noah shrugged almost helplessly and that just sent Rose off into another laughing fit, but after she calmed down there were smiles on all of our faces. ‘Now that that’s figured out and done with and we don’t have to watch you two staring all lovingly at each other at all hours of the day… onto our next problems that still need to be sorted out.’ I looked at her in confusion, ‘What other problems?’ she had a glint in her eyes, and I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not. ‘You and Tim.’ I started spluttering and I knew my face was red, but I decided to ignore that for the time being. ‘I- what? There’s no Tim and I, we’re just-‘ ‘If you’re about to say friends, I will slap you ok.’ Rose cut me off. ‘You went through hell, some of it by yourself, some of it with Tim or Ethan by your side, you faced horrors that most people are scared to even dream of and you’re telling me you draw the line at feelings? Even these two idiots somehow got their minds to work correctly and figured out how to do things the right way.’ At this part, two offended voices could be heard, but I ignored them. ‘He’s still in the hospital-‘ ‘so is Noah’ ‘he’s barely out of a coma! I can’t just… well, I don’t know what I would do, but I can’t just force him to deal with so much crap out of the blue.’ Rose shook her head, looking quite exasperated by this point, ‘You’re really not listening to me, are you? You went through a lot of stuff together, even if in a short amount of time, you have to tell him sometime. Even Ethan told Noah, so you see it can’t really be that hard.’ 

I looked down at my hands, but I could still feel the eyes of all the people in the room on me. I fiddled with my hands for a bit and then went over the events of the last month in my head. How it started out so normal, with the sun on the sky, me on my skateboard and a new schoolmate in class. How I somehow made a friend, through skateboarding, through love for nature and adventures. How it all suddenly turned so dark I couldn’t see the light, literally. How every single moment in that place was going to stay in my mind forever, no matter how hard I would try to run away from it. How it started turning brighter, only for it all to come crushing down again when I saw Tim lying on that table, blood surrounding him. How I was only going through motions for the next couple of days, feeling nothing and everything at the same time. How good it felt to see his eyes again, the happiness, the sadness, all of it. I looked around the room. I looked at Ethan, broken so many times, life bringing him down again and again, but he managed to stand up, taller than even before. I looked at Noah, lying in bed, his eyes shining with love, hiding hints of worry, how he always wanted to save everyone, even if he wound up getting hurt in the end, how he was perfect by almost every single one of society’s standards, but just wishing and wanting happiness and knowing how to achieve it. I looked at Rose, in her wheelchair, her hands at her sides, how she didn’t care what the world thought of her, how she was always up for adventures, how her eyes hid pain, not showing it to anyone around her, somehow knowing just what to do in every given moment. And then I thought of Tim, a few floors below us, lying is his bed, his parents by his side, how he went looking for a girl he barely even knew, not knowing what he’d find, how dangerous it’d be for him, but not giving up. 

I looked down at my hands again, seeing the scratches on them, knowing there were still bruises on my ribs and stomach. I didn’t even know how many injuries we all had combined; me, with my bruises from the beatings, Ethan, suffering the same, only for so much longer, with bruises and cuts on his hands, legs and ribs, Rose, with her broken leg, burns on her arms, sitting in a wheelchair, Noah, with a bullet wound in his stomach and Tim, with bruises and burns and cuts down his body. We have all bled and been hurt so much, over and over and over again. We didn’t choose this; we’d be crazy to. We were so young, and we all knew we didn’t deserve to go through what the world threw at us. We somehow came out on the other side, with our bodies bruised and bleeding and our minds scarred, but we made it. And people are going to say that we’re stronger because of that, but deep down we all knew that if we could choose, we’d never go through this again, no matter what.  
But I also knew that besides Ethan, Tim is the only one that’s able to understand what I went through. And I knew that he’s the only one that would understand my nightmares, because he had the same ones, or worse. I looked at Rose again and nodded ‘I’ll tell him once he’s out of the hospital, I promise.’ She rolled her eyes, but I could see a smile on her face, and I was able to relax in my chair again, the sound of the other three talking becoming a background noise, allowing me to close my eyes, if only for a moment and to finally just…breathe again, feeling no interruptions, no nothing, just peace and safety.  
\---

It’s been two weeks, Tim was out of the hospital, as well as Noah. Rose was still in her wheelchair, but the doctors said her leg was improving, she should be allowed to switch from the wheelchair to crutches in two months, it wasn’t fast, but it was progress. Tim’s parents allowed him to go skate with me, but only if they could drive us there and stay with us the whole time. My parents agreed with them, so they were currently in the bar next to the skatepark, Rose was sitting with them at the table as well, Noah and Ethan by our sides. 

We were sitting on the bench, looking at the city spread out in front of us. The sun was beginning to set, painting the sky pink with a mix of orange and yellow in between the skyscrapers. Tim was sitting to my right, Ethan to my left with Noah next to him. Ethan was leaning his head on Noah’s shoulder, their hands intertwined. I looked at Tim, I still haven’t told him how I felt, even if I told Rose that I would. I knew it was time to, even if I didn’t know quite what so say to him, how to even start the conversation. I knew that what Rose had said was true, we went through all of that and somehow I didn’t know how to tell him how I felt. I looked at the skateboard that was leaned against my legs and then at Tim’s. I nudged him with my shoulder and looked over at the skatepark a few meters in front of us.  
‘If you want to, I’ll give you another chance to beat me at the jumpers?’ he smirked, ‘What, seeing how shinning your performance was the last time?’ I stuck out my tongue at him ‘Do you want to give it a try or not?’ he chuckled and nodded, picking up his skateboard.

When we reached the skatepark I turned towards him, fastening my helmet and lowering my skateboard on the ground. We both set off at the same time, the wind whistling past our heads. We skated for about 5 minutes, him beating me twice and me beating him twice. We were tied, we slowly came to a stop in the middle of the skatepark, the ground wasn’t as steep as it was in some other places in the park. It was a stretch of pavement, about 10 meters long. I looked over at Tim staring at nothing in particular and then slowly exhaled, it was now or never. ‘I have an idea for a trick I want to try, wanna see?’ he looked a bit confused at first, but he nodded, nevertheless. I held out my hands and told him to do the same. I moved closer to him until our hands were wrapped together and then stood on my skateboard. ‘So, here’s what I was thinking. You can do a kickflip, right?’ ‘Of course I can do a kickflip.’ I smirked, ‘all right, all right, just checking. So, we do a kickflip, but we um, hold hands while doing the kickflip, got it?’ I saw that he was going through the trick in his mind, looking at the pavement in front of us, calculating just when to do the tick to land it right, I knew he was thinking that, I did the same thing, you always do, just before doing the trick. He then looked back at me and nodded, ‘All right, let’s do it.’ I smiled nervously and we set off, our hands together, somehow guiding the skateboards below us just the right way. We came to about the half of the length of the pavement, counted down from three and then simultaneously pushed down on the front of our boards and somehow managed to land the kickflip, he slowly let go of my left hand, but my right still stayed in his. We skated towards the ledge and jumped up.

He looked at me, a little out of breath, but happiness still present in his eyes, and a smile on his lips. ‘Damn, that was amazing!’ I laughed next to him, sitting on my skateboard. ‘Right?!’ he nodded, looked down at our hands and then at me again. ‘We should do that trick more often, I quite liked it.’ I could feel myself blushing, but I just decided to smile and look back at him. ‘I liked it too. Hey Tim?’ ‘Mhm?’ ‘I like you.’ He smirked and bumped his shoulder with mine. ‘Yeah, I know.’ I deadpanned and he chuckled, running his thumb over my palm. ‘Kidding, I like you too. So… Ice cream? I’m buying.’ 

I laughed, but stood up nevertheless, skating back towards the bench, towards Noah, Ethan and Rose, towards our parents. Towards the future? Probably. We tried to leave those memories behind, all the bruises, all the cuts and wounds, all the hours spent in the dark. And it was hard at times, waking up screaming, the nightmares still haunting us even years later. It will always be a part of us, but, with time, it gets better. Not immediately, and it will never be the way it was before, definitely not, but with each day it gets better and what I found out is that it gets better so much faster if you have someone by your side who knows what you went through, who went through the same hell, the same tortures, the same darkness. But enough of that. Because it was time to leave it all behind. All the injuries, all the tears and breakdowns, all the bad dreams and sleepless nights. It’s how it starts, the getting better part. It starts by leaving it all behind and living a freer life, not caring what the world would say, only knowing it gets better, with every single passing day.


End file.
